How's your rain?

[ALLFARMER]

Turned our bulls out last year June 28, first calf
Mar 28 so ya June 20th your should for sure
have calves by April. Better run neighbor wants
to trade track hoe hours for my dozer usage. I
have never run a track hoe before so today might
just be the day!

[grassfarmer]

If your 4 "very good young bulls" can only cover 120
heifers I wonder what they are very good at? I'd be
quite confident two of our 2 year olds would breed
120 heifers, maybe throw in a third if you have less
experience and want to feel re-assured.

[greybeard]

Have you still got some 2yr olds suitable for heifers?

[SADIE]

Allfarmer

Your bull ratio is very correct. 4 bulls for 120 head on range conditions.
That should give you the insurance you need to have your heifers covered first & second cycle.

You got them anyway so use them.

[grassfarmer]

greybeard - If that was addressed to me sorry, I'm out
of bulls for this year.

Sadie - "very correct" in your opinion maybe. How do
guys saying this explain a Longhorn? Mature bulls
with a scrotal of 28cm, a struggle to get enough
volume for a sample to test yet they'll breed half the
cows in the country, the neighbours included if you
give them a chance. At the same time lots of guys
breed 100 heifers with the aim of getting 70 or 80 in
calf. Good business for bull sellers suggesting 25-30
cows per bull but poor business for the commercial
rancher.

[ASRG]

Years ago there was a guy out by Hanna that used to sell Charlais bulls at two years old that had never seen a grain pail and were just run out on the prairie. They were like 1400 or 1500 lbs. He never helped anything calve.
They had a terrific reputation for being able to breed large numbers of cows.
I think his name was Bill Hunt, but I may be wrong.

[grassfarmer]

I've heard of that guy ASRG. Makes sense - that's just
the way we rear bulls too. Too many fat slob bulls
around that can't move and spend their days fighting
and sitting in the shade instead of breeding cows.
Maybe waiting for the owner to bring their lunch pail
for them as that's how they were raised. A bull with
30 cows or heifers to breed only has to average 1.5 a
day if they are all cycling in the first 21 days. A bull
that can't manage more than that is a bull in name
only in my opinion.

[kato]

Bulls can get hurt though, no matter how they were raised. We've got one right now that's done something major to his shoulder. However, we never overload our bulls, so there's lots of bull power left to get the job done.

Over the years we've also had a bull hit by lightning, we've had one go visit the neighbours, and we've had one get tangled in some wire in a rented pasture. There's more involved to getting the cows bred than just having a fertile bull. He needs to be healthy and sound too.

It's nice to have a cushion in case something goes wrong out there.

[per]

Usually when our bulls get hurt it is because there were multiple bulls scrapping. It is not always practical but my heifer breeding happens near to home so I can run 1 bull in up to 50 plus girls. Keep an eye on proceedings and change out as necessary. We keep 25-1 bulls around but seldom have that ratio in the field. The extra bulls get swapped out for the second cycle or in case of injury. It's not like the bulls cooperate and communicate which cows that they breed. Usually the poor girl gets multiple partners.

[grassfarmer]

I think a lot of producers waste a lot of money on
bulls. I pastured 70 cows the first summer I was here
for a rancher that buys some of the top show ring
Charolais bulls every year. He turned out 3 bulls with
the 70 head and all 3 had to be replaced during the
season, in fact one of the replacement 3 had to be
replaced by one of the originals who had recovered
by that time. One of the original 3 bulls was shipped
due to a foot injury, a yearling bull died eventually
and I don't know what happened to the 3
replacements. I felt sorry for the guy and said he was
having a run of bad luck - he didn't think so - this
was about average performance over the years.
Anyone care to count the cost of this type of
scenario? That type of Charolais bull is not cheap to
buy - probably 2.5 times the price I sell bulls for, he
needs twice as many bulls and the cull rate is at least
twice what mine is. Can sure burn through a lot of
money every year doing this kind of thing.

[gcreekrch]

On our range conditions we use a ratio of 1-17. Lots of years we don't see our cattle enough to solve problems as they arise. It is safer to turn out extra at the start and let Mother Nature look after any possible wrecks. This spring we were 80 calved in the first cycle.
Heifers are bred in a pasture at 1-30 ratio. I like having an odd number of bulls in a pasture situation as it seems 2 are usually having an argument and the third is doing the breeding.

Dad used to say that in a pasture situation on the prairies back in the 60's that a bull who couldn't look after 70 cows was not considered a good breeder. Not sure what the calving period length was though.

[burnt]

I've learned the hard way that the poorest place to try to save money is by cutting back the bull power. Some guy's bulls might have a magic wand instead of a penis but those bulls are pretty rare.

One extra is way cheaper than one too few.