Handle with a little care

Been neglecting your herd bulls this winter?

Admit it: For seven to 10 months out of the year, you treat your bulls like your in-laws staying for an extended visit-a necessary evil.

Make sure you’re not threatening your productivity picture by giving your bull pen a quick check:

Invest in soundness exams

A month to 45 days before breeding season, every bull should get a good breeding soundness exam, including:

• A check of structure, conformation, injury, degeneration and body condition.
• Scrotal assessment to predict reproductive ability.
• Semen evaluation to check for sperm motility and abnormal sperm.

Don’t overextend them

Check your bull power before breeding season. The highest natural service ratio without A.I. should be less than one to 50. Recommendations generally suggest more like 30 to 40 females per mature bull; 15 to 25 for young bulls.

Adjust those ratios based on age and condition, semen quality, sexual soundness, diseases, mobility and posture conditions.

Check nutrition

Good quality pasture usually will meet the bull’s maintenance needs, with a couple of exceptions.

• Be sure to supplement young bulls soon after selection in order to meet protein and energy growth requirements without excessive fat deposition. For the two months before breeding, yearlings should gain about 2 pounds a day.
• Precondition mature bulls to withstand the workload of the breeding season. Bulls ought to condition score at 5 to 6 before turnout.

If you’ve overfattened or bought a fat bull, don’t cut back on his diet too abruptly. It can damage reproduction. Ease off feed intake by about 10 percent per week, until you get to 70 percent, and then hold there until you reach target condition.

All bulls should have access to a high-quality mineral mix.

Give them space and shelter

Off-season bull pastures of at least two acres per bull will not only foster exercise to prevent obesity--particularly if you locate water, feed and loafing areas to encourage movement--it will also reduce stressful pecking order confrontation between old and young bulls.

Because both extreme heat and cold reduce reproductive ability, make sure bulls have plenty of summer shade and water, as well as winter wind and snow protection.

Vaccinate

Make sure you don’t short-change bulls in the cows’ herd health program. The earlier in life you identify and then immunize them, the healthier they’ll be as adults.

Work with your veterinarian to develop a vaccination program that suits your area, as well as your likelihood to introduce disease from purchased replacement stock. A number of vaccines are available to protect against the common reproductive diseases, generally including vibriosis, leptospirosis, IBR and BVD. Others include Haemophilus somnus and trichomoniasis.

If your herd is open and thus likely to bring in pregnancy-wasting diseases through purchased additions, new bulls should be isolated, tested and vaccinated for transmissible diseases before introduction.

Don’t forget parasite control--regular deworming, fly control in the summer, and grub and lice control in the winter.

Reprinted with permission from Practical Health/Farmland, February 1998.