Feeding bulls

[flacowman]

With all of our show cattle we try to keep them with just a little cover at any given time.  If they are able to deposit just a small amount of fat, they have extra energy left over and are growing to the top of their genetic potential.  This being said, my heifers are never as fat as the others in the ring, my steers almost always grade choice, and my bulls almost always are larger framed, thicker muscled, and heavier boned while sometimes sacrificing some gut if you hit a growth spurt wrong coming into a show.

Any large bull supplier or animal science professor will tell you that fat bulls suffer from greatly decreased fertility and libido, and my philosophy about show cattle is to pull the best from the functional herd, not necessarily to breed unrealistically for what will win in the ring every time.

 

[Mainevent]

With the bull I have in the barn he is on free choice wheat hay fed twice a day with 20 pounds of grain and Purina pre con. He is also fed a pan full of winning fill at noon. May be a little different than most but I like the way he grows.

 

[jsuhr]

I heard of I guy feeding distillers grain to his bulls and in the fall when he preg checked his cows, they came up open. Does feeding distillers grain to bulls effect fertility because that was the conclusion in this case.

 

[Acts1:8HFF]

I heard of I guy feeding distillers grain to his bulls and in the fall when he preg checked his cows, they came up open. Does feeding distillers grain to bulls effect fertility because that was the conclusion in this case.

I no experience with this but I had heard something similar but I couldn't quite remember what I read so I looked it up. Its about steers and E. coli but still interesting...

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/10/17/e_coli

As I said, I don't have experience with it but I was told by a relative who owns a large feed lot that if you only feed a low percent of their total diet from ethanol by-product feed it won't cause a problem.

 

[justintime]

I heard of I guy feeding distillers grain to his bulls and in the fall when he preg checked his cows, they came up open. Does feeding distillers grain to bulls effect fertility because that was the conclusion in this case.

We fed stillage from a local distillery until it closed a few years ago, for many years. If anything, our fertility was much better than normal. We found that this was a much more economical way to keep more cows rather than have to rent or buy pasture land and maintain the fences. We could run 3 xs as many cows on the same land base. For example, we have a smaller pasture that comes right up to our buildings that we normally ran 25-30 pairs in. When we fed the stillage, we ran 100-110 pairs in it. It was great for AI breeding as the cows all came to the troughs morning and night, so I just sorted off the ones in heat . I would go through 1 cycle of AI then turn a bull out to clean up and there was seldom an open cow or a later calver. We paid 1 cent per gallon for the stillage and costs were about 1/2 of renting pastures, trucking, repairs, etc.

In regards to feeding bulls, we feed our bulls for optimum growth and try not to get them too fat. We have to buy any grain we feed so we are always looking for cheaper alternatives to rolled rations from feed mills. We have several feed processers that produce a 13-14% protein pellet that consists of grain screenings, pea and lentil screening and a low percentage of barley. Our bulls have grown extremely well on this feed and they stay athletic and only have enough fat cover to provide bloom. It has worked well for us. A rolled grain ration from the feed mill ran about $420- $445/ tonne last winter. The pellets were $168/ tonne.

 

[nkotb]

I heard of I guy feeding distillers grain to his bulls and in the fall when he preg checked his cows, they came up open. Does feeding distillers grain to bulls effect fertility because that was the conclusion in this case.

If this was the case a large number of commercial breeders in our area would be SOL.  We live in close proximity to an ethanol plant, and a large number of cow/calf producers utilize both wet and dry distillers in their winter ration for cows and bulls as it is a cheaper feed source.  None of them have any lower preg rates due to the distillers.  The big mystery preg reducer around here seems to be trich, which guys don't realize they have or aren't willing to admit they have.  The usual winter feed for these producers seems to be a little ground sorghum sudan hay, the distillers, and ground wheat straw.

 

[husker1]

I'm pretty sure that a majority of bull developers in our area (Central Nebraska) feed some type of corn by-product in the process.  We've fed wet distillers or gluten for years.  Normally, we will have only a few retest bulls out of 50 or 60 head. 

The condition on a yearling bull is a tough deal.  No one wants to buy a green bull, but there are certainly more problems the more over-conditioned a bull gets.  (and they normally sell better too).  We limit our bull rations to a 52 NEG.  We've virtually had no problems with feet, legs, etc., and most of the bulls have long lives.  I know at a 52 NEG we are at the lower level of the feeding scale, but we are willing to sacrifice a little selling price with them not being as fat as some, for the longetivity of the bull and satisfied customers. 

When I see some of the hot rations of a 60 NEG plus, it makes me cringe.  But everyone does things differently, and those folks might feel our ration is totally wrong.

Bottom line is too much condition will cause future problems, but too little condition will hurt the "perceived" value!