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Experiment

N

Northern Rancher

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Feb 10, 2005
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saskatchewan
Were going to run three breeding groups at the Waldorf-two groups of about 320 cows apiece-the bulls with each are going to be a mix of yearlings to mature but are from two completely different management regimes-I'm going to weigh them in and out of the cows and see what shakes out. The third group is a couple hundred or so heifers-all yearlings and twos with them. We'll be around 30 cows per bull-the pastures are all well watered and nothing very rough.
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Yearling bulls will dang sure get the old guy off his duff and get to work though.

Just because I have to run one bull per pasture, I have considered keeping a few no-goods to gomer and put in with the old bulls, but as yet it is just in the considering stages.
 
NR; Can you set things up so you can rotate the bulls in and out by age groups.....turn the young bulls out for a cycle....remove them & turn out the old guys. You can turn the young bulls out a bit later again when the matures have run down a bit. Could save some of the nasty injuries & those rested yearlings will sure scout out cycling cows.
We have used both together but some of those older bulls get downright nasty towards competition! It can be frustrating trying to replace crippled bulls in breeding season.
 
NR,

I see what you are trying to do, but the really interestig thing would be if you had a way to tell how many calves each bull sired. I have seen some research trials where they put a bunch of different bulls from different environments and then they DNAd all the calves. Some of them would sire 35 calves or more, but some would only settle 3 or 4. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if the one that bred all the cows would be a little thinner.

Brian
 
cowsense said:
NR; Can you set things up so you can rotate the bulls in and out by age groups.....turn the young bulls out for a cycle....remove them & turn out the old guys. You can turn the young bulls out a bit later again when the matures have run down a bit. Could save some of the nasty injuries & those rested yearlings will sure scout out cycling cows.
We have used both together but some of those older bulls get downright nasty towards competition! It can be frustrating trying to replace crippled bulls in breeding season.
Click to expand...

Its interesting everyones experiences are different. I had a customer a few years ago that runs about 400 head in a huge pasture. He had mostly old bulls but threw some yearlings in the group too. He said the older bulls tended to hang around tha water holes and let the cows come to them whereas the younger bulls figured it out that in orderto have some fun, they would disperse out away from the water holes better and cover the cows better than with just old bulls. Maybe it just depends on the bull too.

Brian
 
I run a young bull 1 or 2 year old with a older bull in the meadows togather never have had anyone get hurt that way. The only time things get western is when the big boys cross paths out on the summer range. It will be interesting to hear about your results keep us posted.
 
We run alot of bull power.. Two or three bulls per pasture... But then we are half done with calving in ten days or so.. Our bulls all run together during the year so they all have a pecking order... But four cows in heat at one time keeps everyone busy and out of each others way.... We generally raise our own bulls so not alot of exspence and we don't keep our bulls that long........
Now in saying that...... I did get a wild hair and buy two simi cross bulls.... Now I'll have to pamper the boogers.... :roll:
 
I see what you are trying to do, but the really interestig thing would be if you had a way to tell how many calves each bull sired. I have seen some research trials where they put a bunch of different bulls from different environments and then they DNAd all the calves. Some of them would sire 35 valves or more, but some would only settle 3 or 4. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if the one that bred all the cows would be a little thinner.
Click to expand...

I used to run a yearling with a 2 and dna the calves before I got enough crossfences. I basically always put 55 head with them. I never really paid attention to condition on the bulls but twice in 4 years I had the yearling outbreed the 2, both times only by a head or 2. One other time I had the yearling breed only a few and had over 40 out of the 2. The same bull as a 2 was outbred by the yearling. A shy breeder I guess.
 
Our range is pretty rough, lots of timber, swamps and mud, and the area works out to about 120 acres per cow. We like to have a ratio of 1 to 17 with about 1/3 of them being young bulls. The yearlings seem to find the cows that are cycling and most times keep the old boys stirred up enough to keep working. Normally 90% calved in 30 days.

There is not a lot of difference between our home raised bulls and bought bulls by their two year old year. They seem to hold most of their condition until grass loses quality sometime in September. I have no problem with feeding bulls a few lbs of pellets to get them into shape for the next year as our hay quality is not near what others have.

Haven't ever tried any experiments with other peoples cattle. :?
 
The only thing were doing different is weighing the bulls in and out. There is one group has been a bit overmanaged, one is more fit than fat and one will be the mostly Hereford group. I've always run mixed age bulls and haven't had much trouble. I just want to see how the bulls change weight wise through the season-lots of grass so that won't be the issue.
 
I have seen DNA results from a yearling bulls turned on to yearlings heifers that would blow your mind. One bull covered 68 heifers in a 27 day breeding period. The data was substantial in the fact that the numbers were there, somewhere around 5000 heifers exposed. The bull to cow ratio was around 1 to 23 for 27 days, if something got hurt they were not replaced. If I remember right something like 10% of the bulls covered around 35% of the pregnant heifers. DNA testing is expensive, althought if they could develope an EPD for libido what would it be worth if it was accurate.
 
Ive run fields with up to 25 bulls on 700 cows in township fields. We have thrown yearlings up to 6 year old bulls in together. I think the yearlings kept the old bulls going harder cause they would travel better. As far as weigh in and out , the over fat bulls I know from being out there did not cover near as many cows. They would not get as run down but were more prone to other problems. I would like to judge the bulls quality more then thier weight in the fall. The angus field had about 800 cows in it and covered about 40 sections , most of the bulls were supplied by 2 big breeders. Breeder A feedloted his bulls then sold them to patrons in this lease. Breeder B at that time raised thier bulls on limited grain and hay then sold them. You did not need a scale to sort them after a 60 day breeding season.
 

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