Bulls- High forage ration?????

[Dylan Biggs]

[Grassfarmer]

Good post Angus62. Excess heat in July is not normally a big issue up here - we don't often get too hot.
NR mentioned in another post about the poorest conception rates you get being from big "stale" heifers. Doesn't this apply exactly the same to the males of the species? If I bought out of Calgary bull sale I'd get a 1400lb yearling or a 2000+lb 2 year old - in early March. It's winter here, regardless of how I fed him he would slide in condition through to grass time and likely beyond. What will his semen quality and production be like under these conditions? Won't he just be a big stale bull?
Our "underfed" forage raised bulls on the other hand will hit the grass running - ours, and most of our customers, bulls don't go out till mid July. These bulls will probably be gaining 2.5-3lb a day from late May through to July - wouldn't that naturally result in them producing vastly better quality and quantity of semen? Our semen tests in May suggest this is the case.

I read recently an article about feeding bulls in their off season - how you would need to feed to gain back the 200lbs they lost breeding plus allow for them still growing. Given that most guys calve in spring the breeding season tends to be summer, they get pulled in the fall and stand all winter with nothing to do. In my opinion if the bull isn't able to maintain condition on the summer grass that a cow is rearing a calf on, he's not a great flesher. He should certainly be able to make up condition on fall grass before winter. Our biggest problem is keeping bulls from getting too fat over winter.

[Northern Rancher]

A bull ghaining weight freezes better quality and more volume of product than a fattie. Some of the Calgary Bull Sale chumba whumbas hget to be old friends at the A'I stud. Dairy bulls produce way better than beef bulls because they deal with infertility they don't make it a rare desired commodity.Trust me when an A'I stud tells you a bull isin short supply its not necessarily because he's selling well.

[PATB]

Why shouldn't the bulls be raised the same as your heifers? If a bull excells well on the same feed as cows and heifers then his offspring have a better chance on the same feed regiment. Whats the saying "buy your breeding stock from some one who manages their animals the same as you or harder"?

[Dylan Biggs]

Another problem with overfed bulls in addition to feet, fat in the scrotum affecting fertility, and liver problems, is the adjustment the rumen has to go through in the ration transition from the feedlot to the breeding pasture. Depending on breeding season relative to departure from the lot it can take 2 weeks or more for the rumen flora to make the adjustmnet. If the bull is breeding during this transition he won't be getting the feed value out of the grass at the same time as he is going from couch potato to the rigors of breeding with the demands that will place on him. It is no wonder fat bulls shrink like a plastic bag in a grass fire.

[Just Ranchin]

Been gone for a couple days...it looks like I started a bit of a firestorm. Too many comments to talk on, but I will comment on the use of silage. We do feed a TMR on the bulls of barley/oat silage, alfalfa hay and 13% screenings pellets. The bulls are getting 20 lbs of silage (35% DM), 11 lbs hay and 8 lbs pellets. This is a 48 NEG diet showing a projection of 2.75 lbs/day. Some bulls are blowing that out of the water, others are well below. (Thus a magical thing called genetic expression). The pellets contain 25% barley, 25% mill run and 45% screenings. What people often don't take into account is the moisture and grain content of the silage. It is not hard to get 40% grain in either barley or corn silage, but you still classify it as a forage. I recently saw a sale catalogue stating they feed a 70% as fed forage diet, and magically the bulls were gaining 4.5 lbs a day. Either one amazing herd, or a really wet silage.

[PureCountry]

[leanin' H]

[Grassfarmer]

[PureCountry]

[elwapo]

Gassfarmer
You would think that a true grazing guru would have immigrated down here to southern Alberta where we stock at about 6 cows per 1/4 section. As far as forage testing, there is nothing more of a test on cows than grazing 10 months of the year on prairie wool and cactus. While performance testing their offspring seems distastfull to forage proffesionals such as yourself, it is icing on the cake for the offspring of extreme forage tested cows.

[Dylan Biggs]