SRBeef
Well-known member
Do you leave your bull in with the herd year round or pull him out after 45-60 days to concentrate the calving period and eliminate/cull open stragglers?
Pulling the bull out
- Thread starter SRBeef
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Susie David
Well-known member
We're a small enough operation the we can run the bull with the cows and pull the gals that we need to delay breeding for whatever reason. At my age I keep changing the operating plan...appraoching retirement plans are making more of a impact on decisions. DMc
hillrancher
Well-known member
I try to pull the bulls to keep from calving in June, July and August. Then pull to keep from calving in November, December and January. This save a lot of work and loss for me. Also gives two pay checks per year.
grannysoo
Well-known member
We run our bull year around with the girls.
Our bull goes in with the girls in Aug., and stays with them through April. He is pulled out for 3 months for calving. This past calving season all the girls calved within 3 weeks, except for our heifer with twins, he caught her on the second heat in with them so she did not straggle all that much behind.
Our neighbor has a larger herd and has his bull in year round. He has calves year round. That is not practical for us as we don't want to mess with unknown calving dates and cattle calving in Feb when it is so cold that God stays inside.
Our neighbor has a larger herd and has his bull in year round. He has calves year round. That is not practical for us as we don't want to mess with unknown calving dates and cattle calving in Feb when it is so cold that God stays inside.
bigbull338
Well-known member
the bull stays with the cows year round here.i like calving year round.
rockridgecattle
Well-known member
bull goes in mid June and comes out the end of August. We like to calve at a certain time.
Our bull goes in May, generally comes out in early September. This sounds like a 120 calving period, but all of my calves are born in the first 45 days, except for a straggler or two. By culling cows that calves outside of the 75, 60, or first 45 days of the calving period, you can eliminate all of the sleepers, less fertile, and otherwise less productive cows from your herd.
The reason we leave our bulls in longer is facilities. If we had a small pasture with good fences to put the bulls after breeding, my bull would stay in for 45 days and be idle. Different strokes for different folks, but I have a town job too, and like to have all my calves born in as short of a time frame as possible.
There are many advantages to a short, defined calving period. 1. Uniform calf crop 2. Labor is confined to much shorter time frame, very important with heifers. 3. Shorter calving seasons will get rid of the less fertile cows. There are also a few disadvantages. 1. Seperate pasture for the bull(s), or dry lot situation. 2. If only a 60 day calving period, you have to keep your bull seperate for 10 out of the 12 months in a year. 3. If you are a small herd and only have one bull, he would be by himself after breeding season. Cattle do not like this.
There are also advantages to leaving a bull in year round. 1. Some cows will give you a calf every 11 months, some maybe shorter. 2. Generally will always have calves that can be sold. 3. Bull will generally be content, as he is always with some ladies. Disadvantages. 1. May not see the sleeper cows, or the ones that calve every 13 or 14 months. This can be eliminated by meticulous record keeping. 2. Calves will be sold in smaller lots at the sale barn, generally meaning less $/cwt. 3. Requires more labor checking on cows to watch for calving problems.
In the end it is up to each individual producer and what works best for them. Short calving seasons work best for me.
The reason we leave our bulls in longer is facilities. If we had a small pasture with good fences to put the bulls after breeding, my bull would stay in for 45 days and be idle. Different strokes for different folks, but I have a town job too, and like to have all my calves born in as short of a time frame as possible.
There are many advantages to a short, defined calving period. 1. Uniform calf crop 2. Labor is confined to much shorter time frame, very important with heifers. 3. Shorter calving seasons will get rid of the less fertile cows. There are also a few disadvantages. 1. Seperate pasture for the bull(s), or dry lot situation. 2. If only a 60 day calving period, you have to keep your bull seperate for 10 out of the 12 months in a year. 3. If you are a small herd and only have one bull, he would be by himself after breeding season. Cattle do not like this.
There are also advantages to leaving a bull in year round. 1. Some cows will give you a calf every 11 months, some maybe shorter. 2. Generally will always have calves that can be sold. 3. Bull will generally be content, as he is always with some ladies. Disadvantages. 1. May not see the sleeper cows, or the ones that calve every 13 or 14 months. This can be eliminated by meticulous record keeping. 2. Calves will be sold in smaller lots at the sale barn, generally meaning less $/cwt. 3. Requires more labor checking on cows to watch for calving problems.
In the end it is up to each individual producer and what works best for them. Short calving seasons work best for me.
Aaron
Well-known member
We run our bulls for 50-60 days (mid-June to early August). Possibly 65 days if weather is poor or other things come up. Tight calving seasons lead to higher profitability in calves when sold as they are more uniform and sell in larger groups. Have seen many herds that got lazy one year and let the bull run much too long. It's a death wish that is almost impossible to recover from, without selling more that 50% of the herd to bring them back in synch. :cowboy:
ALX.
Well-known member
Aaron":79mw7k7b said:
Well said.
TheBullLady
Well-known member
Huh? I'm not sure what the "Death wish" was about that last post?
We also run a bull year 'round. We have registered cattle, which doesn't mean anything other than I'm going to give them a longer period of time to get bred. I've always had better luck with selling two calf crops off.. one in the spring and one in the summer. Seems like the market is always fluctuating so much it's never a sure bet as to which one is better!
We also run a bull year 'round. We have registered cattle, which doesn't mean anything other than I'm going to give them a longer period of time to get bred. I've always had better luck with selling two calf crops off.. one in the spring and one in the summer. Seems like the market is always fluctuating so much it's never a sure bet as to which one is better!
randiliana
Well-known member
We generally run the bull for about 60 days. This year we have some cows that only had a bull for about 45 days. We will usually put the bulls back out with the cows for late fall, just for convenience sake. But we preg check around the same time and all the dry cows are either gone or leave shortly. We like to have all the calves on the ground in March and April. That way they are about 600 lbs (or more) by sale time in the fall.
Aaron":1nc6ev2f said:
It shouldn't be. If the bull is left in too long, then the cows that are calving late are ones that would have been open and culled if the bull was pulled out at the usual time. No need to worry about bringing the herd back in sync, just sell the subfertile cows that should have been culled anyway.
ALX.
Well-known member
randiliana":3pr1oq84 said:
You are putting waaay too much pressure on the folks who don't depend on their cattle for income.
Aaron
Well-known member
milkmaid":344u6547 said:
As a vet student, your comments shock me. I would think that someone like you would be in favour of having a regulated breeding season. I suppose if you have access to a vet for preg-checking, than you could run the bull long-time. We have lost our large animal vets in this area (not to mention preg-checking is pricey anyways - last price on time for a vet for the neighbour was $36 per 15 minutes). Nearest practicing large animal is over 300 miles away. Good and tough management eliminates the need for vets. Our area is a testament to that. :cowboy:
Aaron":10nvxzh2 said:
You lost me. In a beef herd, I'm definitely in favor of a tightly regulated breeding season. My comments were only in regards to the fact that if someone's poor management results in a bull being left with the cows too long, there's no reason to presume they will have an impossible mess to recover from and that 50% of the herd would need to be culled... unless those people have such subfertile animals that 50% of the herd would be open in a tight breeding season. Does that make sense? In a tight breeding season, subfertile cows come up open after the bull is pulled. In an (accidently) extended breeding season, subfertile cows become late calvers the next year. At worst, those people would have to keep those late calvers until the point when they want their calving season to be done, and then ship the late calvers. It's not an impossible problem.
How do you expect to get a tight calving season if the cows are not preg checked after breeding? It sounds as if you're not even advocating preg checking...? IMO, the cows ought to be preg checked in some way -- vet, yourself, BioPryn, skilled neighbor, etc -- after the breeding season to determine who is open and who is not so you're not keeping open cows.
Just FYI -- $36/15 minutes translates to $144/hr which isn't that bad. My vet charges $175/hr last I heard (I rarely have enough work that he charges per hour), and I spoke recently with a fellow in AZ on a feedlot whose vet charges $300/hr.
We normally have a tight calving seaons, 35-50 days depending on long pregnancys sometimes. That was with AI. Using a bull for clean up we start AIing around May 20 and turn the bull in around June 20 and pull him the end of July. After preg checking he will go back with the girls just to ease the managment of multiple pastures. The one year we didn;t pull the bull we had a couple of calves born is late june. Too small in September to ship with the others so they went to the sale barn.
Red Bull Breeder
Well-known member
Run the bull with the cows until they start calving, then pull the bull. How long the bulls stay with the cows after they are bred don't matter as long as you get him out before the cows have calved and are cycling agin. You only control breeding when the cows are cycling so why worry about about the bull runing with bred cows.Just pull them out right before calving, put him back when you are ready.
