holestein bulls

[regolith]

They are not on loose pasture but are in housing barns. Thus you would interact on a daily basis with the dairy bulls more so than the beef bulls..right.....therefore your chance of a dangerous encounter is increased..

I reckon bull management with a dairy herd in this country is pretty much identlical whether they're beef or dairy breed.
However, I can't answer the second part of the question whether one breed is more dangerous than another, so this is probably useless information. Of the bulls I've worked with I've met one mean Angus, one mean Jersey - the Angus was meaner than the Jersey.
The farm I managed that ran Holstein-Friesian bulls with the cows - those bulls were the gentlest I'd worked with up to that point. Group-reared by the farm owner, then managed in groups of 20 - 30 till they were old enough to lease out for servicing cows (and 2 or 3 came home to take care of their mothers and aunties and sisters).
Jerseys have a real bad name for temperament. However, I've worked with a half dozen or so over the years and only came across one that was a bit dodgy.

So if the bull goes for the farmer because he thinks he's competing for the cows, does that mean he wouldn't attack a female farmer? Even if the female farmer is walking around with a bunch of loaded inseminators?

 

[djinwa]

So if the bull goes for the farmer because he thinks he's competing for the cows, does that mean he wouldn't attack a female farmer? Even if the female farmer is walking around with a bunch of loaded inseminators?

LOL, I suppose if bulls were that smart, you could just wear a sign saying, I HATE YOUR COWS!

I was wondering when dairies or semen companies select potential sires. Seems if you had to deal with one for years, risking death, it might be worth having them raised on a nurse cow instead of on a bottle.

 

[hillsdown]

I guarantee bottle has nothing to do with it . The studies are not impartial as was stated before and BTW can you at least spell the name properly... :roll:

HOLSTEIN ............

 

[Aero]

does castration seem to make a big difference on these hand-raised calves?

 

[blackcowz]

does castration seem to make a big difference on these hand-raised calves?

Heh, never bottle fed a mean steer, I can say that much. :lol2:

 

[Keren]

I guarantee bottle has nothing to do with it . The studies are not impartial as was stated before and BTW can you at least spell the name properly... :roll:

HOLSTEIN ............

:nod: :nod: :clap: :clap:

 

[djinwa]

I was focusing more on the hand-rearing, but I guess raising in isolation is a big factor. Had my daughter at her university look up the study from the article:

Physical isolation of hand-reared Hereford bulls increases their aggressiveness toward humans
Edward O. Price and Samoa J. R. Wallach*
Department of Animal Science, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, U.S.A.

Accepted 12 April 1990. ;
Available online 2 October 2003.

Abstract
Hereford bulls hand-reared from birth in individual (N=8) or group (N=9) pens were assessed for aggressiveness toward humans while being driven from their home pens to an empty arena (approximately 100 m distance) and back on 3 consecutive days. Individually reared (IR) bulls were more aggressive toward their handler than their group-reared (GR) counterparts (P < 0.01). Six of 8 IR bulls directed threat behaviors toward the handler on Day 1 compared with only 1 of 9 groupreared (GR) subjects (P<0.025). In addition, 2 IR bulls attacked the handler on more than one occasion; none of the GR bulls initiated attacks.
The aggressiveness of the IR bulls was attributed to both hand-rearing and physical isolation from conspecifics. Hand-rearing reduces the animals' fear of humans and physical isolation may prevent animals from learning contextual cues for the expression of normal submissive behaviors.

 

[chippie]

I do not believe that a dairy breed bull's aggressiveness has anything to do with being bottle fed.
They were dangerous hundreds of years ago and they still are. It's in their genetic makeup. They have a strong sense of territory.

Some breeds of dogs are the same.

 

[Jake]

I won't speculate whether it's the bottle feeding that causes the aggression but I can tell you about the time they hit 18 months to 2 years their attitudes change. I worked at a bull stud for almost 2 years and we'd get the dairy bulls in at about 400 pounds and take them on up. The sweetest little calf was guaranteed to turn into a man killer. There has been a big movement to eliminate bulls off of dairy operations for the safety of the workers and dairymen. They figured it was safer if there was ten of us exposed to them instead of thousands. I was also taught a dairy bull had 3 purposes in life: Eat, Breed, and kill you, our job was to accomplish the first two without letting the third happen.

 

[Workinonit Farm]

Long time no see Jake. Good to see you back, however brief it may be.

Katherine