Service life of a bull??

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SSS Angus

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What could I expect the service life of a black angus bull to be? Roughly what age does he become fertile and at what age does he start going down hill if well taken care of? :?:
 
SSS Angus":1tsz0z23 said:
What could I expect the service life of a black angus bull to be? Roughly what age does he become fertile and at what age does he start going down hill if well taken care of? :?:

Most of my bulls are well enough developed to breed cows at 12-16 months at the earliest. Have seen some last 10-12 years, but I would guess 8 is an avg. maximum. Most guys trade 'em in at 4-6. In my opinion.
 
most bull start breeding at 16 months. then are sold at 5 b/c of keeping heifers. but they can breed cows up till 8 or longer. unless something happens to cause them to shoot blanks scott
 
Have a BSE exam done on him every year. I learned that the hard way. For the past 3 years I have gotten a longer and longer calving season. I thought is was my management. Come to find out...the calving season was streaching because the bull was losing potency. Several were cycling 2 and even 3 times before he settled them.
 
hey chrome how old was your bull when he started losing it. as far as breeding the cows went . scott
 
bigbull338":bklg8zq0 said:
hey chrome how old was your bull when he started losing it. as far as breeding the cows went . scott

Put him out when he turned 2 with only 30 head. But he had to breed them all. The next year, because I liked the calves he went out with the second herd of 50. Last year, put him on 30 again.
He turned 5 in march.

I don't remember the numbers the vet gave me from the BSE test. I'll have to dig them out.
 
I might add, he was a shorthorn with no pigment on his scrotum.
Cert said that is rumored to have an effect on furtility.
 
well at 5 thats bout when he should start losing his stuff.i know this a black balled bull will put alot of black titts on his heifers. an being black may keep the seman fertilty up. from what your saying id prolly had him cked as 3 yr old. scott
 
chrome":2gid7jbc said:
bigbull338":2gid7jbc said:
hey chrome how old was your bull when he started losing it. as far as breeding the cows went . scott

Put him out when he turned 2 with only 30 head. But he had to breed them all. The next year, because I liked the calves he went out with the second herd of 50. Last year, put him on 30 again.
He turned 5 in march.

I don't remember the numbers the vet gave me from the BSE test. I'll have to dig them out.

Too many cows, not enough bulls.
 
chrome":2ia08c1v said:
I might add, he was a shorthorn with no pigment on his scrotum.
Cert said that is rumored to have an effect on furtility.

What could scrotum pigmentation have to do with fertility? I would like to hear more about this! None of my bulls have scrotum pigment and I have not had a problem. That reminds me of a guy telling me once that if a bull has a "double row" of eyelashes then he is homozygous polled! :roll:
 
MikeC":3nre3m7e said:
That reminds me of a guy telling me once that if a bull has a "double row" of eyelashes then he is homozygous polled! :roll:

Or Gay

MikeC":3nre3m7e said:
What could scrotum pigmentation have to do with fertility? I would like to hear more about this! None of my bulls have scrotum pigment and I have not had a problem.
Mike, the old hereford breeders around here claim that if a bull is not pigmented that the sun will bake his swimmers thus reducing fertility over time.
That is always what I've been told and locals seem to buy accordingly.
Monte must think so too. Espically after the ad Star Lake ran in the herd sire edition of the World. A particular bull's "boys" were red on the cover but inside the same bull's "boys" were white like they were in Denver. Hmmm :roll:

Hope that answers your question. But I can't cite you any scientific proof.
 
cert that was a very loaded q . as for the number of cows pre bull being to high i dont know. b/c ive always ran 1 bull on 80 to 120 cows.an if a bull went bad i knew it real fast. had 3 bulls in 28yrs to get sick an couldnt breed before i had them a yr.im running 25 cows to a bull now . b/c the bulls are over 6yr olds. an im watching the bulls closely. scott
 
I've always noticed that some of the Angus cows had white on their udders, but never noticed a bull with a white scrotum. It must not be real common or either people send these on to the feedlot.
 

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