Bulling cows

[hillman]

AI? It's a lot of hassle with sucklers. AA no horns, never thought of that. Thanks.

Is it possible to suckle the calves morning and evening , shut out remainder , gets the cows cycling as calves aren't always drawing off them , then you could Ai and use your blue to sweep after 6wks

 

[GTB]

Is it possible to suckle the calves morning and evening , shut out remainder , gets the cows cycling as calves aren't always drawing off them , then you could Ai and use your blue to sweep after 6wks

I'm sure it would work but it sounds like a lot of work and we're trying to keep things as simple as possible here.

 

[hillman]

I never used that system but some off our better farms do and are getting the results

I suppose a nice bedded area with a bit off meal and feed the calves would get into the routine quickly first few days I'd imagine would be the worst

If it got cows cycling , able to choose Bulls to max system , worth a try ?

 

[CharcoalWally]

I never used that system but some off our better farms do and are getting the results

I suppose a nice bedded area with a bit off meal and feed the calves would get into the routine quickly first few days I'd imagine would be the worst

If it got cows cycling , able to choose Bulls to max system , worth a try ?

Dead easy.

Suckle calves. Cows then turn out to feed area , so they won't hang about. Calves want in to their bedded area after their milk , and if you feed them after they're turned in , they'll head for the pen themselves.

After evening suck , cows want to go and settle for the night , so they'll quickly get themselves in to a natural routine.

 

[Andrew1983]

That's not enough bulls n they are not rested enough. If working hard a week is long enough n then at least a week to rest. Also do you have vet to check cows? Do you look to see bulls are working?

Well I would have thought it was enough bulls/cows? They get a bedded pen to lie in and get cake 2x a day. We see the bull working yes but after the bull came away we never saw many cows bulling so it was a shock to have 20 empty.

1 reason I put it down to is me trying to tighten up calving pattern, he ran virtually all year round calving before. Ages of empty cows were mixed but some of them would not have been long calved when they went with the bull.
1 bull had been semen tested as he was young and hadn't been seen working the summer before. Other was also a young bull but he left 20 calves and the other 2 were 6 year old bulls who had served 70cows fine the summer before.
We should have run bloods but didn't. Our calves always come back clear for bvd. And young ch bulls we sell have always tested clear for everything.

There were 2 cows the scanner said weren't right inside, they went off but the rest all went in calve this summer, they took the bull quick.

I'm hopeful that we will get them tightened up into a good pattern and that a lot of empties is the price we will pay until its sorted.

 

[multi power]

Well I would have thought it was enough bulls/cows? They get a bedded pen to lie in and get cake 2x a day. We see the bull working yes but after the bull came away we never saw many cows bulling so it was a shock to have 20 empty.

1 reason I put it down to is me trying to tighten up calving pattern, he ran virtually all year round calving before. Ages of empty cows were mixed but some of them would not have been long calved when they went with the bull.
1 bull had been semen tested as he was young and hadn't been seen working the summer before. Other was also a young bull but he left 20 calves and the other 2 were 6 year old bulls who had served 70cows fine the summer before.
We should have run bloods but didn't. Our calves always come back clear for bvd. And young ch bulls we sell have always tested clear for everything.

There were 2 cows the scanner said weren't right inside, they went off but the rest all went in calve this summer, they took the bull quick.

I'm hopeful that we will get them tightened up into a good pattern and that a lot of empties is the price we will pay until its sorted.

You say some were not long calved n they went in calf quick at a later date so were they well fed? What was cow condition like? Had they any bad calvings? Retained cleansings etc?

 

[multi power]

I'm sure it would work but it sounds like a lot of work and we're trying to keep things as simple as possible here.

What about swapping bulls every 24 hours instead of 12 hours? That might get more even numbers of blue n Hereford calves

 

[Andrew1983]

You say some were not long calved n they went in calf quick at a later date so were they well fed? What was cow condition like? Had they any bad calvings? Retained cleansings etc?

As much good silage as they could eat in a tmr with draff, straw, mins and they also got approx half a kilo of bruised barley every morning to get them out of the scrape passage easily. A good 40kgs-45kgs head/day total. Yes there would have been a few bad calvings no cesars but a couple that should have been. But not retained cleansings that I can mind. Calves were creep fed too.