The bull is happier running with the herd all the time! It also makes for a much quieter farm. But that has some disadvantages. When I was growing up we usually had a bull, usually a young Hereford that we generally kept about 2 years. After the bull had been with us for about 2 years, we would sell or butcher it to prevent the bull from breeding his daughters. We would then replace it with another young bull, usually the best one my Dad could come up with at the stockyards.
We usually would pen up the bull for several months a year, to try to schedule our calf crop for lat March or April. We had a bull pen that was strong enough that none of the bulls ever were able to break out. But all of them tried. Obviously the bull was not happy when they were penned up--they bellowed a lot and let everyone know they wanted out. A couple of times we tried penning the bull up with a steer for company, but it didn"t seem to help much, and I think the steer got bullied pretty badly. Luckily Hereford bulls are relatively benign, but I was always told to NEVER get into the bullpen when a bull was contained there.
Of course we had to feed the bull hay and keep the water tank filled in the bullpen. We also had a shelter where the bull could go to get out of the sun or weather, and lay down on relatively dry ground. Confining the bull also meant that the bullpen would need to be cleaned out after he was released.
We sometimes used the bullpen for confining heifers and cows we didn"t want bred while the bull was loose with the herd, and also it was connected to our loading chute, which we used when we hauled cattle to the stockyards or when we bought feeders. The bullpen was handy for getting newly acquired animals used to the idea that our place was their new home.
We sometimes used A.I. with our dairy cows, which were very used to being handled. A.I. usually worked quite well, and often the cows settled immediately. But for reasons I never really understood, sometimes a cow would not become bred and A.I. man would need to try again. Unfortunately that made the calf a month later and the cow"s lactation that much longer. Very seldom did we have any problems at all with the cows settling when bred by the bull. It just seemed to work better.
The way we managed our herd, having a bull made pretty good sense. Our bull usually serviced about 30 cows a year and helped produce a great calf crop. And after the bull had served his purpose at our place, we never had any trouble selling them to be used as a bull or to butcher. It always seemed to me that bulls grew faster than cows or steers, and I liked the taste of relatively young bull meat.
For a lot smaller herd, I would question keeping a bull, especially a bull that is not as benign as our Herefords were. Although using A.I. requires a lot more observation of the cows to catch them in the right stage of heat, I think that I would probably try that. Having a bull CAN be a lot of problems, requiring stouter fences, especially if the bull gets it into his head that he wants to roam around. Such a bull can be a real hassle. Good luck!
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Today's Featured Article - Listening to Your Tractor - by Curtis Von Fange. Years ago there was a TV show about a talking car. Unless you are from another planet, physically or otherwise, I don’t think our internal combustion buddies will talk and tell us their problems. But, on the other hand, there is a secret language that our mechanical companions readily do speak. It is an interesting form of communication that involves all the senses of the listener. In this series we are going to investigate and learn the basic rudimentary skills of understanding this lingo.
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