When to go back to the bull

Colin · Post by **Colin** » Wed Feb 20, 2008 10:56 pm

Should we rest our cows or heifers after calving before going back with the stock bull and if so for how long ? As we've not split our herd up, the cows are still in with the bull when the calves are born. So far there's not been any problems. They tend to start bulling again after about a month. But is this pushing them a little too hard ?

We have only just started having female calves after a spate of males and we will of course split them (with their mothers) from the bull until they are 15 to 18 months old.

Colin

Duncan MacIntyre · Post by **Duncan MacIntyre** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 12:27 am

Most breeders would want to have the bulk of their calvings at the same time every year, otherwise the system can be very complicated. So to do that you want to start serving the cows at the first season after 56days calved. Before that you may well get many of them in calf but not all of them, and quite apart from having calves at an earlier date every year you will have a poorer conception rate, and consequently a more spread out calving. It then gets more complicated running a bull with them in later years without having heifer calves which are beginning to come in season with the bull and also with older bull calves from the same year. It is often the case that if you try to bring them forward say a month every year that after a few years they miss one, and you are back where you started. I have tried to bring one particular cow forward twice and ended up with her calving in January as she seemed to want to. This year I held her back and she will have a 16 month calving interval and calve in April/May like the rest of them.

Duncan

wagra dexters · Post by **wagra dexters** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 2:30 am

In our experience, it isn't a good idea to calve in with the bull, unless it is a very large paddock, and the cow can be sure to get some privacy.

Apart from the benefits of calving all the cows down within a few weeks, some cows may well still have grazing, or still be cleaning, at the time of their calving heat. We have joined on calving heat to bring one late calver in closer, but she was older, had a small calf & an easy delivery, and was clean.

Margaret