got my bull tested and need some wisdom..

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SouthernGrit

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I have a 12month old bull that was a twin with a heifer.. he's been steady breeding a hiefer of mine for a few months and she still kept coming in..so i figured i need to test him. his semen came out clear.
vet didnt even look under scope. just said he wasnt fertile. ive looked up a few things but cant get anything concrete online. any advice or wisdom? im really hoping that there is still hope for him. was a bottle baby and full angus.. dont get much options down here. went over 4 hours for this bull.
 
If there aren;t any swimmers there isn;t anything you can do. You could cut him and train him as an ox if he's a pet.
 
I think I'd get a 2nd opinion in a couple of months. First he is very young and 2ndly if the vet didn't even look at the semen under the microscope then how would he know? Sure the sample he got may have looked very clear but that may have been the result of the sampling technique, you will get some bulls that don't just produce the goods through electrical stimulation and you may only get watery seminal fluid and that is no fault of the bull.

I am a retired vet myself and can easily borrow from my friend an electro ejaculator to do my testing for my bull sale however for the sake of impartiality I get another friend who is a repro specialist to do my testing and he and his son always use internal massage to get the sample. It is very reliable and no stress on the bull and they have to be in there anyhow to check the accessory sex organs. The samples always seem to be very consistent.

Ken
 
SouthernGrit":3l1pp4j3 said:
his semen came out clear.
vet didnt even look under scope. .

I'd get a 2nd opinion, and be sure that the semen sample makes it to the microscope. I have not known a vet, doing a bse, to NOT look at the sample under a scope.
 
Thanks for the advice. I had reckoned that he was still to young to test by a few more months, but got myself in a tizzy bc the heifer kept coming back in.
I wish i could do it myself...but the vet did use the internal massage. Just didnt check what was produced other than eyeballing it.
Thanks again. :)
 
still learning how to reply on this site...but i am grateful for each response. Thank you.
 
I'd get a second opinion, too. Usually the bull calf is good and the heifer isn't; that said, I have a dairy that has 4 "free martin" heifers that have bred and calved and are in the milking herd. So they technically aren't free martins although they call them that. Talked to their vet and he said that there are some cow families that seem to release eggs from BOTH ovaries and if the eggs implant in the different horns the chances of the female being good is alot higher. Never knew that. This farm does alot of repro stuff so they know what they are doing, been milking for over 50 years. We have never kept the heifer twin to a bull in the beef cattle due to the "heifer won't be good" sentiment.... but I don't dislike twins like some people do so I may try to keep some if they are out of good cows. Have a holstein twin to a bull that is coming yearling and plan to get it put it with the bull in june/july and if it breeds fine, if not it will be beef so doesn't matter. It was a calf that I got to put on a nurse cow last year. But get him semen tested under a scope, before you can him...
 
Maybe your heifer has some problems....Had a reg holstein heifer here from a friend who couldn't get her bred, regular heats and all, not a twin, and she was with 4 different bulls and never settled....no one could pin point the reason.
 
At 12 months if he can;t settle one heifer he or she has a problem. If the discharge is clear ,i.e. has no grey look to it there isn;t much sense in checking it with a scope.
 
SouthernGrit":29eucvoi said:
I have a 12 month old bull.... his semen came out clear.... vet didnt even look under scope, just said he wasn't fertile.
any advice or wisdom? i'm really hoping that there is still hope for him.
full angus... don't get much options down here.... went over 4 hours for this bull.
Advice... since you paid for vet test... I'd expect a scrotal measurement and vet opinion on future expectation.
Wisdom? Don't rely on hope, face reality of probable low conception even if he does come around in a few months and have a plan B.
 
kenny thomas":1ibo3dpr said:
The very first sentence says it all. Twin to a heifer. Should have been castrated soon after birth.

Do you mind explaining a little more? We used a bull that was twin to a heifer for 6 years without ANY issues. He bred every cow that he had with him, they calved unassisted, and weaned decent. We have quite a few of his daughters in production, and have sold sons to folks from Oklahoma to Georgia.
 
Twin to a heifer should have no influence on the bull's fertility or quality.

IMHO it is not a reason to automatically cut a bull calf.
 
LLBUX":1nn21hj8 said:
Twin to a heifer should have no influence on the bull's fertility or quality.

IMHO it is not a reason to automatically cut a bull calf.
Correct! There are plenty of other reasons a bull will come up infertile.
 
greatgerts":3b41lamu said:
kenny thomas":3b41lamu said:
The very first sentence says it all. Twin to a heifer. Should have been castrated soon after birth.

Do you mind explaining a little more? We used a bull that was twin to a heifer for 6 years without ANY issues. He bred every cow that he had with him, they calved unassisted, and weaned decent. We have quite a few of his daughters in production, and have sold sons to folks from Oklahoma to Georgia.

I certainly can't speak for him, but I assumed he thought the calf should be cut because he may be more likely to pass along a tendency for having twins. Did you see that in the one you kept?
 
So the you expected a 10 month old bottle calf bull to breed your heifer. Was the heifer also a bottle calf? How about a picture of the bottle baby bull you have. They say a picture is worth a thousand words.
 
Bought a registered bull at 14 months once. He was tested by a known vet right before we bought him and was great. Ran him with a group of 11 cows at a rented place for three months. The guy we bought him from drove by and observed a cow in heat and called us. He was concerned and a few days later had the bull retested at his expense. Came up clear.

He loaned us another bull to try to get everything covered and took the original bull home. When we preg checked, 9 cows had been covered by the original bull for sure, and by actual calving date it seems the tenth was too.

Kicker is that about a month later he had the bull checked again and he was in good shape again. Vet speculated that it was the bulls response to the Electrojac during the second test. Said he seemed more "stressed" by it than most bulls are.
 
Rafter S":3ptoop0t said:
greatgerts":3ptoop0t said:
kenny thomas":3ptoop0t said:
The very first sentence says it all. Twin to a heifer. Should have been castrated soon after birth.

Do you mind explaining a little more? We used a bull that was twin to a heifer for 6 years without ANY issues. He bred every cow that he had with him, they calved unassisted, and weaned decent. We have quite a few of his daughters in production, and have sold sons to folks from Oklahoma to Georgia.

I certainly can't speak for him, but I assumed he thought the calf should be cut because he may be more likely to pass along a tendency for having twins. Did you see that in the one you kept?

Out of all of his calves, we only had one set of twins that he sired.
 
greatgerts":27aaygmw said:
kenny thomas":27aaygmw said:
The very first sentence says it all. Twin to a heifer. Should have been castrated soon after birth.

Do you mind explaining a little more? We used a bull that was twin to a heifer for 6 years without ANY issues. He bred every cow that he had with him, they calved unassisted, and weaned decent. We have quite a few of his daughters in production, and have sold sons to folks from Oklahoma to Georgia.
http://articles.extension.org/pages/393 ... eproducing
 

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