Which breed of Bull

[BobbySusie]

Hi I'm starting dairying next spring, operating a flying herd of hopefully around 65 jersey cross cows. I'm keen to see what people think as regards easy calving bull and what breed to use.

I have been at a few sales over the last few weeks and the angus and hereford calves are hard sold. Anything with continental blood has a buyer.

I'm not expecting to make money from the calves, but any extra would be a bonus.

I have agreed to buy a young stabiliser bull off a neighbour, but will need another bull to keep calving pattern tight.

Bulls have to be easy calving, and I'm not aware of any British Blue around us at home. Based in North East Ireland

 

[Poorbuthappy]

Your stabiliser calves will be "hard sold" too I fear, possibly worse than Angus. But they will pop out unaided no trouble provided the bull isn't "worst in breed" for calving ease?
I assist about 2% of stabiliser sired calvings.

As for another, dont know about NI, but here Lim or Blue would be hard to beat for combination of easy calving and maximising calf return. But there are hard calving lines of most breeds.

 

[GenuineRisk]

You’ve a few breeders of Blues in your area. Go to https://abri.une.edu.au/online/cgi-bin/i4.dll?1=3E372F34&2=2828&3=56&5=2B3C2B3C3A - link should take you to N.Ireland breeders. For Ireland, go to http://www.ibbcs.com/. Blues work great on jersians, never had calving issues with our Newpole Blues on the Newlands dairy herd.

 

[An ancient git]

Got Jerseys still . Used BBs for 30+ years . Short gestation generally , no probs calving , and buyers haven't a clue that they're half Jersey ! Only use 'sexed' Jersey / BB conventional , or occasionally AA on heifers or (maybe) 2nd calvers . I do try to use bulls with data showing short gestation .

 

[som farmer]

if you want a tight calving pattern, and are going to run the bull/s with your cows, we have had a problem, where the xbred cows, and hfrs, tend to synchronise themselves, and tend to keep bulling for 24/48 hours, we missed this point, and ended up with a load of hfrs not I/c. simply because the bulls had knackered themselves out, at the start of the service period ! If, this is your plan, please don't make the same mistake ! So, either find a bit more bull power, perhaps another 2, and use them in rotation, or, take cows to the bulls, so keeping them 'fresh', or do ai for 2/3 weeks, thus reducing the work load. Breed of bull, is less important than getting them I/c. We like hfrds, but have to take a hit on red calves, but do calve easy, otherwise, aa lim bb or ch, perhaps you could hire an extra bull, or 2.? If you hire, get them delivered 2/3 weeks early, and give them a bottle of pen-strep, or similar, should knock out some of the potential nasties ! Good luck, and keep posting about how you are getting on, we did it the hard way, and so are you, I repeat good luck.

 

[An ancient git]

Watch for bulling PRE- service period and record diligently ...... Watch and AI for 2-3 cycles ..... then 'maybe' put a bull in , or just keep on AI (but maybe a 4th service cow wants scrapping whatever !) ! I've had a few bulls and one just missed me , or I wouldn't still be o/line (wheelchair /seriously defunct potential) !! I long since stopped having a bull on place .... Maybe a tiny few cows culled due to fact over years , but safest way . Now I just bother about the odd stroppy ram .... and they can also do some damage !!! Oops , got smacked hard in 2017 .....