Getting a bull to visit

[littleacorn]

Your advice would be much appreciated. We are new to dexter keeping and have 5 females - 1 calved in January (heifer now 7 months old), 1 calved in June (steer), 1 calved recently in the night but sadly the calf got stuck and died and the remaining 2 calved a couple of weeks ago (steers - or will be soon!).

We now want to borrow a bull and wondered what advice would be given regarding the heifer calf. My plan would be to put her mum, the calfless cow (that sounds awful but I didn't know how else to describe her), and the cow with the eldest steer calf in with the bull and leave the heifer to wean with the other 2 cows and their young calves. Then swop over cows after I'm sure the first lot haven't returned bulling. However, it would obviously be a lot easier, and probably quieter, to put them all in together - would anyone do that and then get the vet to inject to be sure the heifer hasn't been got? How does everyone else manage with just a few cows?

Many thanks
PS if anyone has a red bull for hire near Shropshire we would be grateful!

[Rob R]

I'd say that you definitely want all cows to go to the bull together so that you can hire a bull for less time next year. You will also find it easier for calving, tagging, castrating etc. and generally managing the herd as a unit. I definitely think the heifer should not go in with the bull - we had one caught at that age & got the vet in to inject her but he did do a bit of damage in the process (the bull, not the vet!). Take this opportunity to get them all on the same pattern and it'll be worth the hassle of keeping the heifer seperate for the duration.

You may want to put the heifer in with a cow other than it's mother for company & then swap her for the first one that is bulled (providing it isn't her mother, of course), and then swap them back if the second cow comes bulling again.

[Broomcroft]

1 calved recently in the night but sadly the calf got stuck and died and the remaining 2 calved a couple of weeks ago (steers - or will be soon!).

A lot will calve in the night, or more usually in the very early hours. When calving you need to be around which is another good reason for getting the calving as a single group as tight as possible (we work on bull in for 9 weeks max, and in any case, anything that hasn't taken in 9 weeks isn't worth keeping).

You should usually be able to tell whether the cow is about to calve before deciding whether to go to bed. If you are new to cattle then best to study what those signs are (or ask on here). Calving all year round ad hoc is a nightmare unless you're just going to leave them to it which I wouldn't. Dexters are easy calving but they can and do still have all sorts of issues, backwards, born in the bag, legs back, whatever.

Your heifers could be weaned but at 7 months I would feed her and put her with company but nowhere near the bull. She will 99.9% certain get done by the bull if she's with him. You can get the vet to inject her I think 2-3 weeks after coming away from the bull. We just did a while batch and did the injections twice (2 weeks apart) to make certain but vet will advise.

When bringing your calving together as one group, remember that the vast majority won't get in calf till about 2 months after the last birth, so it's very hard to bring calving forwards, much easier to go backwards. And personally I'd avoid summer calving because of heat/flies etc. We do spring calving (March-April) just as the grass is starting to take off.

Good luck.

[Rob R]

Your heifers could be weaned but at 7 months I would feed her

That's awfully nice of you Clive, would you do my weaned heifers while you're at it?

[Broomcroft]

Well I usually wean at 8-9 months Rob straight onto grass and that seems fine. But when I have weaned earlier, 6-7 months, they didn't seem to do so well. So when I had to do it again I put the batch on some good quality youngster feed of some sort, seemed to do a lot better.