What age to breed bulls?
- Thread starter TripleB
- Start date
Herefordcross
Well-known member
I depends on the breed of the cows and of the bull as they will all be different sizes at different ages. I have had bulls start breeding at seven months, now obviously that bull wouldn't be able to mount a fully grown cow of the common breeds anyway. The best thing to do is to let your bull mature to about sixteen to eighteen months before putting him into heavy service and even then he'll need a break and supplemented but, if your only gonna do a few cows then that's not so important but, I have seen as many as a dozen cows wear a bull plum out, started loosing weight and not looking so hot so bottom line is. I guess it depends on what your trying to accomplish and the breeds of cattle involved.
TripleB":2jseteh5 said:
Bulls can - notice I said can - begin breeding as early as 5 or 6 months of age. The usual age to turn a young bull out varies from person to person and operation to operation. Some begin using bulls as yearlings with a small herd of heifers, and some wait until the bull is around 18 months of age or older. Although it is not a common practice for us, we've used a yearling bull as a herd bull when circumstances dictated the need for it - regular herd bull developed an aversion for being 'fenced in', thus buying himself a one-way ticket, and we had open cows. Had no problems - other than a few late calvers - and that bull is still servicing the main herd 2 years later. We've used yearling bulls to service the first calf heifers, but that bunch tends to be small so it didn't place an undue amount of stress on the bull.
warpaint
Well-known member
Personally, I wait till they're 2 yr. old. Just gives them a little more time to gain weight before going into an active breeding career.
