Separating bull calves from heifer calves

[UncleLA]

At what age do you separate bull calves and heifer calves that are the same age?
Thanks.

 

[*Cowgirl*]

weaning

 

[KNERSIE]

I agree, at weaning. I am not that concerned about the bull calves, its unlikely that they will be able to breed a heifer until they are 10 months old, it doesn't do them much good chasing after and fighting over a in season heifer, though.

Make sure your bull is out of the breeding pasture by the time your oldest heifers are 6 months old at the latest. I had the cleanup bull breed a 6 1/2 month old heifer the other day. Luckily I saw that.

I have lost a heifer in the past that got bred at 6 1/2 months that nobody saw. When she was supposed to be bred she was already springing and a caesarian was the only option.

 

[blacksnake]

There is always an exception as to what age the bull and the heifer can breed. I lost a nice heifer that I had no idea was pregnant. The calve was full term but dead. The vet had to cut it up in sections to get it out. This heifer was less than 15 months old. I had kept all my heifers, steers and a couple of bull calf was only one moth older than this heifer. So now I separate at no later than 4 months of age.

 

[Frankie]

We all like early fertility. But I just don't see the value in six month old heifers cycling.

We separate our bulls and heifers after weaning.

 

[KNERSIE]

Frankie, for once we agree on something , but unfortunately its not something you can really control. i've found that my higher milking cows calve's tend to start cycle very early. As long as they cycle by about 13 months so they don't have to be bred on the first heat I am happy.

 

[Limomike]

6 months seems to be the magic age... or at weaning, which could be the same time. I have left some of my heifers on their momma's up until right at 8 months of age, but no longer.

 

[*Cowgirl*]

We pull heifers off at 6-7 months, and have never had a situation as earlier described, but most (not all) of our male calves are banded shortly after birth.

 

[dun]

We seoerate the bulls from their "appendages" at a month or less.

dun

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

We also seperate males from females after weaning. For those using a bull, when in doubt, you can always Lutalyse all the heifers (or the older ones) after seperating from the males.

 

[dph]

If I had the pasture, I wouldn't mind doing it like our breeder does, at birth or right thereafter. We creep and keep our own replacements. While I am not overly concerned about it and we don't push them hard, it would still be nice to creep the steers and not the heifers.

 

[sjr725]

I guess I'm fortunate - we don't run a registered herd so I don't keep any bull calves, all of them get castrated and we buy our bulls elsewhere. And I don't run my bulls with the cows all year 'round - I pull them all before weaning so we've not had the accidents you are talking about. I did buy a pen of replacement heifers a few years back and one of them was already bred when it was time to breed the rest of them - had the vet abort her, and moved on - she bred back that spring and all was good. But no sense taking risks if you don't have to.