Huge wreck could have been avoided

[skcatlman]

I am not the type to take pleasure in anothers pain but maybe putting this out will save someone elses farm. A local commercial breeder had a huge avoidable wreck. He bought in cattle for a few years, just new to cattle he bought up about 150 cows and built a pretty good herd over the last few years. He dispersed a couple of months ago and could only get a couple a hundred of buck per bred cow that he paid $900 average for them over the last couple of years. The reason for this wreck was him trying to save a few bucks on bulls. Talking to him he thought he woulds save some money on bulls buying bulls from a regular sale that were culled by other cattlemen that appeared to have more good calves left in them. what caused the wreck was that the bulls were culled for a reason. He didn't test for anything other than semen tests and they passed with flying colors. Because he had big pastures he just thought the bulls were doing their job what he didn't know until early fall when he saw some cows were in heat is that the bulls he bought had vibriosis,trichimoniasis and carrying BVD. So he had huge numbers of open cows around 80%. He vaccinated and got the cows bred but they were very late,basically missing a calf crop. When he sold out everyone knew of the problems and meat buyer and dealers bought most of the cows. It might end his farming career. All because he wanted to save some dollars and not buy a bull from a reputable purebred breeder. An very expensive lesson, hopefully some of you learn from this buy your bulls from reputable breeders not the local meat sale. Although you may save some dollars to start with those bulls can get real expensive really fast. I know some will say he should have tested for Vibriosis and trich,and vaccinated but that won't always do it. This is the reason for the higher price for a Pb breeders bullsmost are really diligent. But check to be sure bulls are virgins or have have had disease tests done prior to breeding as well most PB guys have a pretty good health standards for vaccinations.