And enjoy a little father daughter time
Time to pull the bulls….
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We are pulling bulls now also.
OP
OP
Today is 42 days since turnout. Hoping to get done by day 45, will settle for day 50 if I have to lol
RDFF
Well-known member
I'm just thinking about turning mine out too!
GoWyo
Well-known member
I have one crawled into the neighbors. Have to go get him out and put up some electric fence to see if we can stop him.
chevytaHOE5674
Well-known member
Mine came out last weekend. 45 days. But cows were synced so hoping for a 20ish day calving season again.
crossbreed
Well-known member
We put bull with heifers 4/1, added cows 5/1. Preg checked last week and all but one heifer and 2 cows still open and the 2 cows calved first week of April. Without a great place for the bull we leave it with cows till 2/1 and then pull as cows start to calve
Those black bulls don't like this heat. They start having to sneak around like Sancho in the night. 
farmerjan
Well-known member
The bull we put with the 15 heifers and my jerseys, will come out right around Aug 1st... that will be 49-50 days. There are 12 older bred heifers due to start calving Aug 15 so I want him out before then.
The bulls with the cows out to pasture will get rotated around starting July 18-20th... they have been in since June 4th...so 45 days... then the "clean up bull" that goes in will be in for 30 +/- days... all according to what we are busy doing... They will all be out by Sept 1st, the latest; so calves are born before June 1st..... except 2 pastures where we cannot get bulls out due to the way we have to rotate and inaccessibility with a trailer to get in to them... they stay until the cows get down to a section we can get to...but it is seldom we have any real late ones... and they can get sold as bred or culled or something... If they take that long to get bred back, we don't really need those genetics anyway.
Kept back 11 heifers from this last group as possible replacements...Shipped 10 steers and 29 heifers..... the steers were later calves, mostly late Nov and Dec calves.....already sold the older, bigger ones and just left these with the cows a bit longer... With the pastures drying up, everything that isn't "essential" is leaving/ has left already. Heifers will get another "picking over " before the final decision... With the drought conditions, we will be even stricter on who stays and who doesn't .
And stricter on breeding/calving windows than we have been... We are going to have to buy a couple tractor trailer loads of hay and it will not be cheap... BUT... right now that is still a better alternative than selling too many breeding age animals... Been putting a pencil to different scenarios....
The bulls with the cows out to pasture will get rotated around starting July 18-20th... they have been in since June 4th...so 45 days... then the "clean up bull" that goes in will be in for 30 +/- days... all according to what we are busy doing... They will all be out by Sept 1st, the latest; so calves are born before June 1st..... except 2 pastures where we cannot get bulls out due to the way we have to rotate and inaccessibility with a trailer to get in to them... they stay until the cows get down to a section we can get to...but it is seldom we have any real late ones... and they can get sold as bred or culled or something... If they take that long to get bred back, we don't really need those genetics anyway.
Kept back 11 heifers from this last group as possible replacements...Shipped 10 steers and 29 heifers..... the steers were later calves, mostly late Nov and Dec calves.....already sold the older, bigger ones and just left these with the cows a bit longer... With the pastures drying up, everything that isn't "essential" is leaving/ has left already. Heifers will get another "picking over " before the final decision... With the drought conditions, we will be even stricter on who stays and who doesn't .
And stricter on breeding/calving windows than we have been... We are going to have to buy a couple tractor trailer loads of hay and it will not be cheap... BUT... right now that is still a better alternative than selling too many breeding age animals... Been putting a pencil to different scenarios....
crossbreed, am I to understand that you preg check heifers after 90 days of bull turn in and cows after 60? Are you using ultrasound? Am I to understand that all cows were OPEN except for a couple at preg check, or am I misreading your text?
Opposite. 3 opens... rest bred... I think lol
We are doing 90 days right now also. Bulls in first of April and out first of July.
Some cows are still being pulled together so like crossbred a we had some calves born in the 30 days before the bull hit. If all goes well, next year I may trim back to 60, may not. I have one bull that has been in 4 or 5 mo. His cows are bred but he is young and just chilling. Didn't want to take him out until I had more bulls to put him with... which is now.
When they US they have been pretty good about estimating the age so Im interested to see how many were bred early vs late. I can line it up with the previous calves for all the cows. We aren't doing this last group until first of Aug so we will have almost a 4mo window.
Some cows are still being pulled together so like crossbred a we had some calves born in the 30 days before the bull hit. If all goes well, next year I may trim back to 60, may not. I have one bull that has been in 4 or 5 mo. His cows are bred but he is young and just chilling. Didn't want to take him out until I had more bulls to put him with... which is now.
When they US they have been pretty good about estimating the age so Im interested to see how many were bred early vs late. I can line it up with the previous calves for all the cows. We aren't doing this last group until first of Aug so we will have almost a 4mo window.
crossbreed
Well-known member
We usually wait till September but yes you read right. But no only 3 were still open. Next year we might try syncing up some to get smaller windows. We will check the three in September and if preg keep to sell heavy bred or if still open they will load the next week
Pulled ours a few days ago. Man, they fought for hours but eventually settled down. Usually put them back in around Thanksgiving for our fall calving cows but thinking of holding them off until March or April due to the screw worm. No issues yet...The sterile fly dispersal plane has flown directly over and all around our place so we will see.
I do worry about the bulls being without the ladies company for so long.
I do worry about the bulls being without the ladies company for so long.
RDFF
Well-known member
It's never good for the bulls (ahem) to be without the ladies for too long, IMO. 
Maybe crossbreed is on to something. Suppose we turn bulls in based on when we want our calving season to start, but we leave them in until preg check/weaning time. We base our culls on the preg check date ( ultra sound?). Assuming we only keep the cows bred to calve in our desired calving season, we leave the bulls in until the first calf is born. Then we remove them for 80 days until the start of breeding season. What would we have accomplished? We would be selling short, medium bred cows in place of opens for more money. We would have eliminated having to care for bulls separately from 9 months to 3. Win/win sounds like to me. Your comments?
Dave
Well-known member
I always did that. Except I often held some of the late breds and sold them as pairs in the spring. Doing that all depended on the cow. Now with the one and done cows we leave a few bulls in with them and gather all together. Some might get sold as bred cows. But regardless a herd of bred cows settle down and aren't coming in heat every 3 weeks.
crossbreed
Well-known member
It’s the best circumstance for me. As you said I only have him pulled to keep breeding season tighter. As Dave mentioned we do sell some pairs if we have any late that we didn’t get sold heavy bred. May 1 calving is my cull date
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It is great if you can get away with it. Not all bulls stay content for all that time.
Some bulls want to seperate from the cows once every thing is bred. We had one do it a couple weeks ago. He was just hanging out in his own world by himself. We also have some neighbors with less than ideal situations. Their mongrals love to work the fence lines. I watched one neighbors Char bulls get turned in and with in a week they are on the fences raising hell rather than working cows.
Thats another benefit of breeding before the others. Get our guys in and out before the **** show starts.
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