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Farmington IL | I enjoy your trying new things jim. Very interesting to watch and you create quite a bit of conversation for us around the farm and I truley enjoy your post.
The last time I used the stock prod was to get a cow up that we pulled a calf out of and she went down in the chute and we wanted her to get up and going before she prolapsed. It jumped her up and we had no problems. We have a nice collection of stock prods but they very rarely get used. They have their place and can be a good tool if used properly.
Letting that bull stand at the back of the trailer for two hours just lets him think he is in charge. Cattle, big or small, need to understand who is the boss and they need to respect you as much as you respect them. Dont kid yourself, just cause you treat a bull like a pet dont mean he wont turn on you when you least expect it.
You have a nice corral set up now you just need a good way to load out. How do you load fat calves? You know solid panels are important. Make sure they cant see out or see light coming in around the back of the trailer.
We buy bulls that meet our needs and provide the best results for us and a give us a product the cutomer wants, price doesnt make a bull good or bad. A bull is a terrible place to cut corners as you said but spending huge money doesnt guarantee super results either. If you want to line breed that is fine with me. What you are doing by putting your bull back in with its daughters is INbreeding and that is a program I would want absolutley nothing to do with. I will leave the facny linebreeding business to the purebreed guys and I will grow pounds of meat. I buy bulls and females from breeders to make our herd better but we bred for the fat cattle market not to devlop genetics.
A couple questions. Why the concern about the tight calving period? I understand how unhandy it is to have a cow or two to have late calves but as long as I get a calf from every cow every year I am ok with that.
I know you have a small herd but as it gets bigger you will need a second bull right? Why didnt you try to keep your old bull? Seems you have everything set up in paddocks so maybe you could have kept them seperate.
When you get your herd to the size you want will you have enough buyers for your freezer beef or will you have to sell them commercially?
Keep up the good work jim. I got to run, allready late for chores cause I was sitting here talking to you!!
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Tools needed to load a large Hereford bull into a trailer (pics)
