Cow condition reflects how well an animal has been fed for the last 6-8 weeks where body weight relative to liveweight targets is how well the heifer has been fed over her life. We really like fall calving for developing those calves. An ionophore (Rumensin or Bovatec) can be included in free-choice feed blends to help reduce the incidence of bloat. Heifers should weigh 55%60% of mature body wt at breeding time and should be fed well thereafter to allow for continued growth, good milk production, and prompt rebreeding. In our program, we want to give young bulls every chance to exhibit their performance, but at the same time keep them sound and not too fat. They will waste a considerable amount of energy chasing cows and losing body condition instead of building up reserves for the next breeding season. Posted by Bull nutrient requirements and feeding recommendations can be found in the EDIS publications Nutritional Management of Bulls https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/AN211, and Feedstuff Considerations for Feeding Bulls https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/AN210. Any diet that includes high-quality, green forages should provide enough vitamin A to meet the yearling bulls requirement. Necessary factors to consider include accessible acreage, labor, facilities, forages, and capital for bull development within the operation. a Ingredient cost and availability will allow a wide array of correct diet formulations to be used. Reproductive effects of feeding gossypol and vitamin E to bulls. The Merck Veterinary Manual was first published in 1955 as a service to the community. If yearling bulls are fat they will need to be toned up before the breeding season. Depending on breed, catalogue formats and trait names can vary slightly, so check with the breed society if you need support, but below is a general guide to what you should expect to see. First, a bull must be developed properly and have reached puberty to be fertile. Annelie Coleman spoke to livestock nutrition specialist Dr Francois van de Vyver about how to achieve this. Try to observe the yearling bull closely to make certain he is detecting heat and breeding cows. Under certain systems of management, beef cattle are wintered on low-quality roughages and thus may not receive the recommended nutrients for optimal performance. This may mean that energy intake will be set below the levels indicated in Table 1. If he weighed 1,250 pounds at turn-out time as a yearling and lost 200 pounds during the breeding season, he would need to gain about 2.0 pounds per day during the nine months until his second birthday. Why? Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Kim Mullenix, Extension Beef Systems Specialist; and Michelle Elmore, Extension Beef Specialist both in Animal Sciences & Forages at Auburn University, Reviewed July 2022,Nutritional Strategies for Bull Development and Maintenance, ANR-2660. Developing a supplementation program for bulls using commercial or blended feeds should always begin with a forage analysis. Heifer feeding and nutrition - DairyNZ Free-choice feeds are generally offered using self-feeders in pastures or drylot settings. Heifers may be bred to calve first as 2-yr-olds (2225 mo) if good winter feeding is practiced to ensure adequate development. Yearling bulls should not be pastured mated to cows that are extremely larger than themselves. Yearling bulls represent a large commitment to beef operations. A system of creep feeding can be practiced in which suckling calves are allowed access to a grain mixture in a self-feeder in an enclosure or to high-quality forage in an adjacent pasture where only calves have access. For bulls to achieve their full growth potential and successfully perform as a breeding bull, nutritional requirements must be met. Even though they are not being pushed as hard as some did in the past, you can compare them to each other as a group and know which ones are the top performers. In the fall, after the first breeding season, treat the bull for internal and external parasites. In order to know how many bulls a beef producer will need for a breeding season, the service capacity of the bull needs to be considered. Outside of development, conditioning, or early breeding, the use of organic minerals is unwarranted. The Alabama Forage testing and balancing the diet will pinpoint supplemental needs. Cross Breeding Systems in Beef Cattle. At turn out time, ideally, a yearling bull should exhibit a body condition score of 6 (the upper end of moderate, scale 1 to 9). UF/IFAS EDIS document. Research has shown that feeding zinc at 60 ppm of the diet is beneficial to male reproduction. This situation can be largely avoided with good bull management. This step- up phase generally occurs over a period of 3 to 4 weeks. Whether the bulls were developed on the ranch, in a commercial facility, or at a centralized bull test, they were probably fed to gain from 2.5 to 4.0 pounds per day from weaning to one year of age. Quality of forage is extremely important to formulating proper bull diets. In general, a high-energy and moderate-protein feed source often is used to support these production goals. We use cookies to help us improve this website and your visits to it. The EPD's that should be considered most highly when selecting a bull to produce terminal calves are calf growth and potential carcass traits. The bull needs all that physical fitness as he will spend a significant amount of time following cows rather than feeding over the course of the breeding season. Some producers rotate bulls in and out of pastures to assure a lazy bulls mates can get covered by another. The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network. ChazCompare Top Charollais sires continue to produce impressive results within their commercial flock assessment. The fact is that the true Pit Bull (the American Pit Bull Terrier) was one of the purest of breeds you could find. 2. Beef Cattle Production and Management - Penn State Extension Evaluate available resources to best provide appropriate nutrition as bull requirements change from development to maturity. Use for phrases Buyers realize a bull should be fit, not fat, but they still tend to think there is something wrong with a bull thats not carrying extra weight at sale time. In the final analysis, however, there is no single perfect feedstuff for feeding bulls and all feedstuff can have a place in a well-balanced diet. All bulls should be gaining weight and some condition during this period. Post breeding recovery is important for all ages of bulls but special attention to this recovery should be given to young bulls that are still growing (i.e. Traditional management of beef calves (including bulls) is to maintain them on their dam until normal weaning at 6 to 9 months of age. Carcass traits are important because they are used to determine the value of a carcass. There are so many different ration possibilities now, with all the distiller grains and by-products for people to use. If a heifer or cow is slightly underfed energy and/or pro- tein, the fetus will still grow to the same size as if she was fed properly, but she will sacrifice her own body reserves or growth to support the growth of the fetus inside her. The use of WCS for young bulls should be limited to 10% or less of the total diet (Boyles, 2008). PDF Management of Natural Service Bulls on Large Dairies - Core EBVs change over time as more information comes in, the higher the accuracy value, the lower the likelihood of variation. A BSE per-formed at the end of breeding can determine whether a bull has undergone any changes that may have compro- Lactation requires more nutrients than gestation. Sale bulls were always fat but producers thought they could just take them home and put them on a diet before they put them out with cows and they would be in breeding shape. If a bull is young and developing, it will have even higher nutritional requirements. The selection of hay should be based on the performance goals for the bull with the objective of meeting the nutrient requirements. UF/IFAS EDIS document. Proper feeding and development of yearling bulls should continue following the breeding season in order to maintain bulls in good body condition and keep them on an increasing plane of nutrition. Bull Management and Nutrition | UNL Beef Accuracy Each trait is accompanied by an accuracy value, which shows you how close the EBV is to the animals true genetic value. For growing bulls, energy limits growth, thus feedstuffs that contain adequate energy concentrations to support the desired level of growth should be considered. You wont learn anything about the maternal characteristics of a bulls daughters simply by looking at him. Nutritional Strategies for Bull Development and Maintenance, Nutritional Strategies for Bull Development and Maintenance, ANR-2660, Sand Mountain Elite Heifer Development Program, Alabama Structural soundness and conformation is an important factor because the bull must be physically able to service cows during breeding. Growth traits are important because in many situations beef cattle producers' revenue is based upon the pounds of calf weaned and marketed or pounds of calf marketed after some extended growth phase. In many production systems, the cow herd is supplemented with WCS during the breeding season so bulls are exposed to WCS and the effects of gossypol. Also, keep an eye on his condition. Limited land resources are increasingly putting pressure on beef cattle producers to optimize and even maximize production on a given land resource. Even though most seedstock producers realize this, many bulls are still fed to be a little too fat. Temperament is also an important trait because it can be a highly heritable trait. Producers should consult with a veterinarian to develop an appropriate vaccination plan during this transition period (refer to Vaccinations for the Beef Cattle Herd, Extension publication ANR-0968). However during the off-season they should be able to maintain their condition without additional supplementation. For large bulls that have lost a lot of weight then a standard 12 ME beef nut will not do. AI companies also include the Euro-Star figures on bulls in their catalogues. Feed supplements should contain a minimum of 65 to 70 percent TDN and 12 to 14 percent CP. A mineral mix and salt should be provided. For example, if a bulls potential mature weight is 2,000 pounds, he should weigh at least 1,500 pounds at two years. Sci. Once these specifics have been analyzed and a development strategy outlined, producers can carefully evaluate bull calves at weaning to select the ones to continue developing as potential herd sires. o [pig guinea] Cwmlliw Farm Selecting rams which excel for growth traits can reduce finishing time on farm. Examples are a bulls age, size, condition, and sex drive. ( See table: Nutrient Requirements of Pregnant Replacement Beef Cows a Nutrient Requirements of Pregnant Replacement Beef Cows a through Nutrient Requirements of Beef Cows a Nutrient Requirements of Beef Cows a . https://agnr.osu.edu/sites/agnr/files/imce/pdfs/Beef/BullNutritionAndManagement.pdf. Most problems associated with slow growth and performance in growing bulls are related to lack of feed quality and insufficient feeding level (feeding too little of a forage or feed resource to meet daily dry matter requirements). Feedstuff considerations for feeding bulls. Saughland Farm - High genetic merit rams enhance carcase value. Self-feeding of any feedstuff without proper management practices in place or knowledge of feed intake patterns should be avoided. However, sequelae read more ). In our case weve been on the same kind of pellets and feed program for almost 20 years and we know what kind of gains well get. The differential emphasis on any of the following criteria is dependent upon the needs and opportunities that a producer may experience on their individual operations. ), Feeding and nutritional management for three systems of beef production are discussed separately. Emma Steele on, Simon and Rhodri Lloyd-Williams, Welsh Mountains, Duncan Nelless - Thistleyhaugh Farm, Northumberland, Russell & Rhys Edwards, Hendre-Ifan-Goch Farm, Bridgend, Adrian and Lyn Coombe, Dupath Farm, Cornwall, Mark & Lynne Exelby, The Hutts Farm, Ripon, Charles Sercombe - Sandlands Farm, Leicestershire, ChazCompare - Andrew Walton and Jamie Wild, Rutland, Chawton Park - Genetics influence speed of finishing, Hutts Farm - High genetic merit rams enhance carcase value, Dupath Farm - Flock profitability influenced by carcase weight and conformation, Hendre Ifan Goch Farm - Consider the benefit of faster finishing versus carcase value, Thistleyhaugh Farm - Genetic influences on carcase conformation shine through, Bowhill Farming - A clear financial benefit in using recorded rams, Chawton Park - Making faster finishing pay, Dupath Farm - Benefiting from increased carcase weight, Thistleyhaugh Farm - Speed of lamb growth vital, Hutts Farm - Hitting market specifications every time. This document is AN210, one of a series of the Animal Sciences Department, UF/IFAS Extension. Cows should calve in body condition score 5.56 (09 scale). Often in suckler herds, we dont have EBVs to assess the dams genetics, so sire choice becomes even more important. We dont have the fattest bulls in the spring, but hopefully theyll be good ones. A word of caution: do not try to bring a bull back too fast with too much grain because of risk of foundering him. Visit the EDIS website at, UF/IFAS Electronic Data Information System, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. There isnt a minimum or maximum accuracy you should be looking for, this is a personal decision for each herd and will depend on the type of animal youre after, but it does help bring some context to the EBVs you have in front of you. This time period allows adequate time for the process of new sperm creation, which takes approximately 70 days. Visual assessment of the feet, legs, eyes, teeth and external genitalia; Palpation of the accessory sex glands (prostrate and seminal vesicles); Measurement of the scrotum as well as palpation of the testis and epididymis; and. In most cases, energy-dense feedstuffs will be some type of cereal grain or co-products (corn, oats, corn gluten feed, dried distillers grains). Feeding too much grain to finishing cattle too rapidly can lead to lactic acidosis or founder ( see Subacute Ruminal Acidosis in Cattle and Sheep Subacute Ruminal Acidosis in Cattle and Sheep Subacute ruminal acidosis is characterized by intermittent, self-correcting periods of low ruminal pH. give a daily ration for each calf over 2-weeks-old - starting with at least 100g at 2-weeks-old and increasing to at least 250g at 20-weeks-old. Managing Bulls after the Breeding Season - Ontario Ministry of Given that an average bull weighs between 1,700 to 2,400 pounds, you will have to give it 34 to 48 pounds of food a day. Type in the AI code of a bull or its tag number and click "Search". To achieve this goal in most cases, yearling bulls may require 1.5 to 2.0 pounds per day gain following a 60-day breeding season. The uses of organic minerals that may result in the greatest benefit include zinc, selenium, and copper. The notion that dairy cows must give birth to produce milk and that the calves are immediately separated from the dam, many of which will end up immediately being sold as surplus calves, has become a topic of public concern. These bulls can end up with liver abscesses, damaged claws and feet, and in some cases permanent reduction in number of sperm produced and often poor semen quality. Chemical analyses of roughages are very useful to determine their nutrient deficiencies and adequacies. Cattle should always be fed an adequate ration that allows them to thrive in their given environment. Growing bull calves should also receive a balanced ration. Managing bulls. However, fat bulls should not be let down too quickly, or their performance during the breeding season may be impaired. Phase 2 encourages rapid growth where bulls are on full feed. The hazards of bulls are well known. As a rule of thumb: beef cattle require 20 g of a general-purpose beef mineral / 100 kg LW, pre-calver minerals typically have a feeding rate of 120 g / head / day and post calver minerals . FARM FACT SHEET - Lamb NZ Animals and Livestock Beef Cattle Production and Management Beef Cattle Production and Management In the beef production industry, productivity and sustainability are among the main objectives of successful beef cattle management. They have a spring and a fall calving herd; they manage each of those groups a little differently. Breeding soundness exam research has reported that bull with scores greater than 71 have a dramatically higher conception rate than those scoring 70 or less points. Purchasing or raising replacement heifers is a systematic part of maintaining a beef cow- calf operation. 2008. Bull management - NSW Department of Primary Industries This is especially true now as yearling bulls can possess considerably more genetic potential for growth than their ancestors. A commercially available supplement can be purchased, or a custom feed can be blended on-farm or by a local feed mill. Visit the EDIS website at https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu. For example, the Alabama Beef Cattle Improvement Association requires a minimum 205-day adjusted weaning weight of 550 pounds and a weight per day of age (WDA) of 2.5 pounds for entry into the North Alabama Bull Evaluation Center. Matt Hersom, associate professor; and Todd Thrift, associate professor; Department of Animal Sciences, UF/IFAS Extension, Gainesville, FL 32611. 1995. Nutritional management is essential for proper bull development and maintenance. The genetics we have today are also a factor; most of the cattle being bred now can grow well without as much over-feeding, says Mickelsen. This work is supported in part by New Technologies for Agriculture Extension grant no. Other trace minerals like copper, manganese, and selenium should be monitored. What weve used for many years that really helps these young bulls is flax based lick supplements. Please let us know if you have accessibility needs. The ration between calcium and phosphorus should be maintained at 2:1 or greater. The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes. There is plenty to consider when searching for a new stock bull; health status, if the animal is fit for purpose, fertility checks, historical management and feeding practices, and whether the animal fits the objectives you have for your herd. Dry matter intake, energy and protein requirements as well as diet formulation is provided as a management aid.