Show Bulls

[novatech]

While reading another thread, REPLACEMENT HEIFERS! Purchase 'em or Raise 'em?, it seemed to have switched from heifers to bulls. It brought up a question for me about what an elderly, very experenced man said to me. Show bulls don,t have longevety. They were kept on feed and were to fat. His X show bull is showing a lot of stiffness in his joints and has a hard time getting around. Although he is still very fertile and gets the job done.
Whats yals opinion?

 

[ALACOWMAN]

While reading another thread, REPLACEMENT HEIFERS! Purchase 'em or Raise 'em?, it seemed to have switched from heifers to bulls. It brought up a question for me about what an elderly, very experenced man said to me. Show bulls don,t have longevety.

• They were kept on feed and were to fat. His X show bull is showing a lot of stiffness in his joints and has a hard time getting around. Although he is still

very fertile and gets the job done.
Whats yals opinion?

don't know much about show cattle but being developed on a high protein feeds and hauled all over the country has got to take its toll on the joints. would'nt really want to blame it on poor structure. just a differnent

 

[L Weir]

I would think it depends on how long a bull was shown and how often. We showed our herd bull and he is still going strong. I know a few that let their bulls out in the pastures to work during the off season.

 

[novatech]

The bull is a V8 Brahman 11 yr old, almost 12. Not real old for a brahman. Maybe artheritius? He seems to free up some when a cow is in heat. Maybe just doesn,t pay attention to the pain.
Alacowman; I think you my be right about all that trailering, I had not thought about that.

 

[KNERSIE]

show bulls can be let down to live long lives, but again its equally possible to cause structural damage by getting the bullcalf heavier than his structure/joints can handle.

 

[novatech]

show bulls can be let down to live long lives, but again its equally possible to cause structural damage by getting the bullcalf heavier than his structure/joints can handle.

Maybe at a young age he was was to heavy, causing excessive wear ("damage") on the joints? At an older age, he is now feeling the effects?

 

[KNERSIE]

Thats very possible. The same way old sports injuries can haunt you many years later.

Overfed bulls when young often looks like ten years old when they are only three. If the bull is still serving cows at almost 12 he has done his job in my opinion and wasn't damaged too much when young.

 

[Keren]

That is exactly why we dont feed our show bulls like other people do. We expect them to go out in the paddock and be able to serve like any other bull. I saw a very good example of this last weekend at a show we attended. There was an excellent hereford bull there who everybody thought would easily win but he could barely walk, was swollen and stiff in the joints and from what I heard was housed in a bull shed and only collected. In the interbreed judging, our bull was given champion because he was the most mobile bull, and the one the judge said he would be able to put out with a mob immediately.

By not over-feeding our bulls we do tend to get placed down behind bulls that are heavier and in better condition, but at the end of the day we have bulls that can go out and work to the best of their ability and that can work for many years in a commercial setting.

 

[*Cowgirl*]

12 years is pretty old for a hard working bull. I imagine after 10 or 11 years of pursuing and servicing cows any bull would be a bit stiff regardless of show history.

 

[Brandonm2]

I agree with Cowgirl. I expect a 12 year old bull to be showing some of his age. I don't think that his show history has harmed him if he is still natural breeding at 12. That said I do agree with the basic supposition that showing CAN hurt a bull's longevity.

 

[oakcreekfarms]

There is a big difference between feeding for shows, and feeding for sale. Sometimes when people start talking about feeding cattle it all gets inter-related with show fed cattle.

 

[Brandonm2]

There is a big difference between feeding for shows, and feeding for sale. Sometimes when people start talking about feeding cattle it all gets inter-related with show fed cattle.

I think most of us understand there is a difference between a 60 -120 day bull growing out program and a show bull who is pushed super hard to show as a yearling, a two year old, and a three year old and ends up weighing 2400++ or more pounds.

 

[oakcreekfarms]

I would like to think that most do, however I really don't think a lot of people make that discrepancy. To a lot of people feeding=bad regardless of amount

 

[KNERSIE]

I probably shouldn't even reply, but maybe this will allow someone else to look at it from a different perspective.

Important as daily gain and feed convertion rates are, there are more to breeding than just that. There are also certain traits which you cannot select for at the feedbunk, constitution being one of them.

Us cautious feeders do understand very well the role that feedlot gain plays, we understand the purpose of shows and how to feed an animal for a show, we also understand the risks involved. We also know how feedtested bulls and show animal can be let down to prevent damaging them or to minimize damage already done.

Most of us are forced by conditions to supplement at least every few years, some of us supplement proteien or phosphates as standard practice.

We also understand the different methods of developing bulls and the positives and negatives of each, but most of all we understand that our bulls need to be able to work under a variety of conditions, some better than we have on our farms, but also some worse than we have on our farms.

We tried to help you by pointing out that there are more options to consider, what you do with that is up to you.

 

[novatech]

A lot has been said about the bull being 12 yrs. old and that may be why he is getting stiff. Maybe so. But I have had several cows that calved to 20 yrs old, and looked it, but never got stiff. This bull was shown then collected until he was 7 at which time my friend bought him and put him to pasture. Given that I do not beleive it is age, but rather the overweight condition he was kept in.
As far as fertility goes he is tested yearly and is 100%. He measures out at 55cm. His fertility is one of the reasons that I like to breed some of my cows to him. I just did not want to pass on any joint problem genetics.
As far as feed goes, In my opinion it should only be used as a supplement when one is out of natural forage, or your getting ready to eat them. How can one sell, honestly, range bulls out of a feed lot?

 

[Frankie]

As far as feed goes, In my opinion it should only be used as a supplement when one is out of natural forage, or your getting ready to eat them. How can one sell, honestly, range bulls out of a feed lot?

Everyone has an opinion. The difference in digesting grain and grass is the microbes in a bull's belly. If he's efficient on grain, there's no reason to think he won't be an efficient grass converter. Some bulls' feet and legs can't take the high protein diet. Since virtually every calf in the US will wind up in the feedlot, I think it's important to know if the bull you use can't deal with a hot ration. I say, how can you sell a bull that you don't know can work in a feedlot situation? There are dozens of feed test stations in the US using BIF gudidelines. To suggest that the hundreds, probably thousands, of bulls coming out of those tests aren't sound is foolish.

IMO, as feed prices go up, feeders are going to pay more for efficient feed converters. One of the knocks on Brahman cattle is their feedlot performance. How will you improve that part of their image if you don't test them?

 

[Brandonm2]

A lot has been said about the bull being 12 yrs. old and that may be why he is getting stiff. Maybe so. But I have had several cows that calved to 20 yrs old, and looked it, but never got stiff. This bull was shown then collected until he was 7 at which time my friend bought him and put him to pasture. Given that I do not beleive it is age, but rather the overweight condition he was kept in.

Maybe my experience is different from others; BUT I have always thought that bulls aged quicker than did cows. They are certainly more active, more aggressive, run around a lot more, and I think that constant activity (pawing the ground, challenging the bulls across the fence, beating up on the fence, herding the cows, breeding 30 cows a year, etc) has a cumulative effect on them. I could be all wrong about this; but I think of 12 in a bull as kind of like being the biological equivalent of 16 in a cow. I certainly have heard of prize bulls living to 20 but they are more the exception than the rule.

 

[IL Rancher]

Bulls seem to have a better chance of giving themselves a career ending injury, at least around here. The jumping, fighting and being bulls tends to led to leg injuries, root injuiries and anything else you can think of... Seems most people will call a 5 year old bull old.. Haven't had too many get much past 5 before I get rid of them for some reason or another. This past 2 years it was blown tendon in a leg of a 5 year old Maine, arthrities on a 5 year old Maine bull (Kind of posty, should not have bought him..dumb), 2 broken roots (One on a Maine, one on a Red Angus), and 2 well, I was getting out of Maines and I didn't like their temperment anymore so, bye bye... The Maines were all bought at the same time and just couldn't seem to handle it.. It kind of hurt getting rid of 6 bulls in such a short time but the only one that real bothered me was the Red Angus... Turned him out and within 48 hours his tool as almost sliced right off..Swelled up and he couldn't retract it and than some one stepped on it... That was a money looser in a big way.

 

[Badlands]

There isn't one bull test in the nation that fully complies with BIF recommendations. In fact, most are out of compliance with the general spirit of the BIF recommendations.

It has been demonstrated that 2.5 pounds of daily gain is enough to express genetic differences for ADG.




BIF also recommends that every breed use Total Herd Enrollment, with Stayability and female reproductive measures.



Efficiency on grain vs grass should be looked at as "system efficiency" instead. What this means is that we need to consider the efficiency of the females over their productive life. In general, those bulls that maximize efficiency on a bull test in a feedlot, will produce females that are too large to be anything but failures in a "systems approach" on the ranch, they will simply be too large.

Badlands

 

[MikeC]

As far as feed goes, In my opinion it should only be used as a supplement when one is out of natural forage, or your getting ready to eat them. How can one sell, honestly, range bulls out of a feed lot?

The concept of feeding bulls grain is a double edged sword. If he doesn't get enough nutrition he doesn't express his genetic merit. If he doesn't express his genetic potential, he won't be compared favorably to other bulls in his group or outside his group. The whole point is to identify the outliers, whether it be good or bad.

A shorter testing period (75-85 days) is, in my opinion, enough time for most bulls to show his potential without adversly effecting his longevity.

Bull tests used to be, in general, longer than they are now. Some were, and are still, 140 days in length, which is too long in my opinion.

The ration difference in these feeding regimens are a key factor in longevity also. Most Bull Tests feed a very high carbohydrate feed (lots of corn) so that the bulls will gain the most they can. This can be detriminal to overall bull health. IMHO

There is a big difference in "Testing" bulls and "Developing" bulls properly.

If you want to develop range bulls by implementing a "HIGH" fiber and lower carb diet and keep gain on a reasonable plane, the cream will still rise to the top and they will not be unhealthy.

Contrary to what some people think, I have never seen one "FORGET" how to graze when turned out with cows.

In the past, in my area, it has been more expensive to develop "Forage Only" bulls and the buyers will pay less for them.
Been there, done that.