Re: OT: Bull ------ fees

Posted by Hal/WA on September 13, 2005 at 10:43:20 from (148.65.0.200):

In Reply to: OT: Bull ------ fees posted by Warren in Wisc. on September 12, 2005 at 13:39:56:

I suppose "pick of the litter" would be asking too much.......

But seriously, I would research what AI would cost your neighbor, and also would do some thinking about how much trouble it would be for you to deal with the breeding.

I assume you have some cows of your own if you are keeping a bull. A bull can successfully service a number of cows in a time period, but I don't remember just what that number is supposed to be. My guess is that unless you have a lot of cows, using the bull for those extra heifers will not be a problem to your herd, and any money you get will be pure profit. It costs a set amount to keep a bull, if he is breeding 3 cows a year or if he is breeding 50. The bull will be happy about extra female visitors too!

I would inquire as to the age and size of the heifers. Sometimes a big bull is too heavy for successfully breeding smaller heifers and can actually injure them trying. When we kept bulls, we usually tried to replace them at about 3 years of age, to avoid the size problems and to try to avoid the problem of the bull breeding his daughters. Our herd was mostly Herefords, but we kept Holstein milk cows. I remember once having a very young Hereford bull who wasn't tall enough to properly reach our biggest milk cow when she came into heat. He tried over and over, but kept falling down. I ended up leading the cow into the creek and the bull was finally successful standing on the creek bank. It was a real nice calf, one of that bull's first sons.

We had some trouble keeping our bulls in the fence if there was a cow in heat anywhere close to our ranch. Even with pretty good line fences, we sometimes would have a bull get out. Their instincts are very strong to mate as many times and with as many females as possible. For several months every year, we kept the bull locked up in the very secure bullpen to control the season when we would get our calf crop. We also found that by keeping a bull, we had less trouble with our cows taking off when they were in heat.

Hereford bulls are about as benign as any bull I have ever been around. I have never been around Belted Galloways, so I don't know how those bulls are. BUT ANY BULL CAN BE MORTALLY DANGEROUS!!!!! Be extremely careful around any adult bull, even if you hand rasied it with a bottle from a baby calf. They might do something that really surprises you. Been there, done that, hopefully never again!!!

I would doubt that you would need to board the heifers for any length of time, unless they are really wild. It is quite obvious when a cow is coming into heat. If you decide to have your bull service the heifers, have their owner bring them over when he notices the first signs of the heifer coming into heat and then take them home a day or 2 later when the bull has done his job. Unless your neighbor's fences are pretty good or unless the heifers are quite far away, the heifers might very well come visiting on their own.

The potential disease problem might be a concern. I would look over the neighbor's place that he keeps his heifers. If it looks reasonably clean and the animals look and act healthy, they probably are OK. If not, don't allow the animals on your property.

If the neighbor is planning to register the calves, assuming your bull is registered, there may be requirements by the registering association. Now would be the time to find those details out. You don't want to put yourself in position to have a hassle later. And maybe a contract would be a good idea. These are sue-happy times.

We had fairly good luck using AI on our dairy cows some of the time. But sometimes it took a couple of tries at AI to get a particular cow pregnant. However, only a couple of times in my experience did we have a cow that would not get pregnant when serviced by a bull, and those 2 cows never did conceive. They went to market the next time we sold any cattle and were probably sterile for unknown reasons.

I guess I would find out what AI would cost, if it is available with that breed, and then charge some more than that for your time and trouble. Good luck to you.

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