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Number of cows per bull? Grain Effect on Bulls?

G

Gomez

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Joined
Aug 28, 2010
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102
Location
Sask
We have been using a 25 cows per bull ratio. Recently I read and article that shocked me for two reasons and I would love to hear some other ideas and experiences on the topics. The two shockers were:
1. some guys are up to 75 cows per bull with grass fed bulls
2. Grain feeding to bulls in the winter decreases their sperm count and therefore their capacity to service cows.

Both of these are surprising to me and can have huge implications on the ranch. Thoughts? :roll:
 
i have a feeling this is going to be one of those topics. :wink: but i figure about 20 cows per bull regardless of the bulls age. when the cows get really scattered in some of these bigger pastures, more bulls the better. IMO

as far as grain feeding in the winter...i wouldn't think that would be a problem unless a person is pushin the hell out of them and they are getting fat as a pig.

alright everyone, let'er rip. :wink: :D
 
We run 25 cows per bull if the bulls are 2 yrs. old or older, 15 cows
per yearling bull.

We've heard for years that we could get by with less bulls...but we
stuck to this ratio and it worked. If it isn't broke, why fix it?

Also, I agree with Justin. It would take a lot of grain to damage a
bull. We don't grain our bulls period. They get hay and mineral and
that's it and they do fine. If they can't do it on that, they don't belong
here.

P.S. One more thing to consider is how long of a calving season
you want. We have bred our cows for 42 days and the heifers for
30. I wonder if you bred for a longer calving season if you could
get by with less bulls per cow.
 
Gomez said:
We have been using a 25 cows per bull ratio. Recently I read and article that shocked me for two reasons and I would love to hear some other ideas and experiences on the topics. The two shockers were:
1. some guys are up to 75 cows per bull with grass fed bulls
2. Grain feeding to bulls in the winter decreases their sperm count and therefore their capacity to service cows.

Both of these are surprising to me and can have huge implications on the ranch. Thoughts? :roll:
Click to expand...

I go along with you...I know of several folks that have ran one mature angus herd bull with 60-70-80 cows and had good conception....
This year because I'm hoping to get more heifers from the Bannon of Wye bull-I ran bulls in split pastures- and ran him with 53 head of my cows... They appear to be bred up solid...

I've heard the grain on sperm count story-and my vet has always said that before you sell a bull that has been lotted that fails a test- put him on green grass for a few weeks and often he'll then test out plumb OK... But I think grain and too fat effects feet the worst around here- and supposedly livers...

But if you are running any kind of grass efficient genetics- they don't need any grain to stay in far better than needed condition....They can do so just on grass and hay...
 
Anywhere from 30 to 40-1 grass or hay fed bulls in a 45 day season. Some times however we will switch part of the battery out after the first cycle. Consistently 70-80% will be bred in the first cycle. This has worked well for many years running. No argument from me if you want to feed grain or have a 10-1 ratio on a 200 day season. I only get to use my income to pay my bills. :wink:
 
As has been discussed before there was a Canadian study done some years back that followed forage raised bulls and high concentrate raised bulls. The forage raised bulls produced more and better quality semen all their lives.
 
Bull/cow ratio numbers probably vary with each producer and what works for them. Out in this rough country most guys go 20 cows per bull max. It tightens up calving season with more 1st heat conceptions. If an outfit had big fairly level breeding pastures with good fences, I have no doubt you could run a lot less bullpower. But open's and late calvers are a hard way to find out you are under staffed. :wink: Ya'll probably have noticed that individual bulls can be lazy or run their legs off breeding depending on thier makeup. As far as the grain question......... I am a firm believer in having bulls in good flesh at turn out time. Quality hay and a protien/mineral tub have worked around here.
 
I think it really depends on a lot of things. Pasture size is one. On our tight rotational stuff, we run one yearling with up to 50. We will do a simple synch program, one shot of AI and turn the bull out immediately after. they can get after a lot of cows in a hurry. On section pastures, we would cut that ratio down, although some bulls that travel well can cover a lot of cows.
We have had bulls that bred over 100 cows in under 60 days (usually not all our cows).
Time of year and herd fertility is another huge factor. Cows going into long days on good grass can breed up in a hurry. We usually expect to be at least 25% done by the date we are to start and 85% done in the first 21 days.
 
One of the ranches I worked for DNA tested all of the calves out of their 1st calf heifers, in order to verify parentage and gather some data on their bulls. Their herd is 100% closed, so they raise their own bulls as well as their own replacements. Over 2500 calves were tested. Suprisingly enough the majority of the calves were sired by a relatively small number of bulls. Without looking at the data I can not remember what the numbers are. I do remember that one yearling bull sired 68 calves and their were several that sired over 50. The suprising information was that most of the bulls sired less than 10 calves. The heifers were bred on a 28 breeding season.
 
Now that is very interesting, flying S.
Thanks.

I know that in the 80's we bred 50 Hereford cows with one polled hereford
bull and one black angus bull. For about 3 years we did this and
we got 40 hereford calves and 10 black baldies each year. :?
(not exact, but close to it)...
 
I just preg checked my hfrs. I had 4 bulls with 78 hfrs for 30 days and I had a bull I purchased with 32 hfrs for 30 days. Out of the whole 110 i had 27 open. But On the 21 PB hfrs I had with the one bull I had 15 open and 7 bred.(Ouch) so I am figuring that most of the other open came from that pasture. I only had tags in the PB hfrs so not able to tell on the rest. At the percentage of PB's open it would make 22 of the 27 from that pasture so only 5% open on the 76 with 4 home raised yearling after 30 days.
 
I usually run about 50-1 but not alot of ground to cover-in kinder conditions a bunch of extra bulls just leads to too much fighting and not enough loving. I did a synch trial for a drug company once and my Charolais bred 13 cows and settled 11 in one day.A grain pail is as effective as a scalpel at ruining bulls for breeding.
 
A little more information. All of those heifers were bred in a mob grazing situation with the average pasture being between 450 and 600 acres depending on which unit the were on. The smallest herd size would have probably been around 700 hfrs. All of the bulls were yearlings as well. If you could collect that kind of data and select for those kind of bulls it could really effect your bottom line. My mind set is a little different than most. Everyone's conditions are different. I would ask myself several questions. First off how many bulls do I have that get hurt during breeding. If I have several I probably have too many bulls out, obviously there is more than one bull chasing a cow. If I pay $3000 for bulls and I have 500 cows and run 20 cows to a bull, What is the saving if I by bulls that have more drive and turn out 1 to 30? It looks like 25 bulls 75000 or 17 bulls at 51000, I just payed most of my wages for the year. Will continental bulls cover more cows than a british bull? Just some thoughts
 
I think alot of times guys run alot of bulls to cover up for some duds-the problem is if you get a dominant bull that is poor fertility wise. A poor breeder in a high cow/bull ratio is not good either but a little observation picks up on that fairly quickly. A large pasture with one water source is just like a much smaller pasture-the bulls catch them at the water. The big forest leases up here are tough water everywhere so cows can get scattered out. erron the side of caution a bit and avoid grain fed hogs like the plague and you'll be fine.
 
I met an old fellow once who told me the best colour of bull to have when you are selling them is FAT. That said, we try to select bulls out of programs that don't feed a pile.
Another issue is whether you can get the kind of bulls in volume to move your program in the direction you want to go (that direction may include staying put).
I think forage raised bulls are more productive here, but I am not sure if that is because of their history or because of their pre-adaptation to the diet on our operation. We had an old Hereford bull one time that would hardly walk at all. He just laid by the dugout and bred cows coming and going.
 
You all have heard the story about the old bull and young bull standing on a hill top over looking a pasture full of cows. The young bull says to the old bull, "Let's run down there jump the fence and breed a cow." The old bull replied, "Let's walk down waller through the fence and breed them all." I think sometimes experience trumps ambition, as RSL pointed out.
 
Ours all started with the commercial cows then 2 weeks later were pulled and went to pasture's with 40-1 4 year old bull 33-1 2 year old bull 28-1 yearling bull and 16-1 yearling bull. I left a yearling with the commercial cows to finish up.Our Cattle don't have to travel as far as many places. We have quite a bit of grass so the cows stay together pretty well anyhow. I can see out west where a guy better have bull power.The amount of grain in the pail will affect the bulls in different ways. We don't grain our bulls but we do feed corn silage so basically they are getting some grain.I'm not going to bash anyones feeding program as I don't know their situation.
 
I thought of this thread when I was reading thru Kit Pharos catalog-and cameacross his "Sexis NOT Work fora Bull"article...

Our bullsare not sissy bulls. Theyare bredand developed in sucha way that they don't fallapart during the breeding season. In fact, most of our bulls willactually gain weight while breeding cows. They go to work every morning witha big smile on their face, because breeding cowsis NOT work for them.

Our recommended cow to bull stocking ratio will vary from ranch to ranch, but itis much higher than the norm. Weare notafraid to recommend turning our yearling bulls out with 25 to 40 cows. We think our 2-year old bulls can handle 30 to 50 cows. Our mature bulls should beable to cover 50 to 80 cows. We know of several cases where our bulls have successfully exceeded these rates.

 I don't thinkanyone really knows how many cowsan easy-fleshing, fertile bull can get settled. However, I believe some ranchers may beable to get by with halfas many bulls simply by using the right type of bulls.

Fullarticle:

http://www.pharocattle.com/Fall-Catalog-2010/pg59.htm
Click to expand...
 
Two questions for all of you.
1. Do you feed grain to your developing bulls and what are your fertility tests like on those with and without grain?
2 Do you fertility test your bulls annually?
 

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