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This is important because cows don't last forever, and they need their offspring to grow up to take their place when they have to be culled or die of illness or natural causes. The only way to produce offspring is if the cows are bred to a bull via sexual reproduction.
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What is the age of a castrated cow?
Cows are not castrated. Bulls are. Bull calves are best castrated before 6 months of age.
What is the best way to dry up a milking goat?
The most natural way to dry off a milking goat is to stop milking her.
What is best in between hand milking and machine milking?
machine milking is by far because you can milk more faster and with less problems to and its more comfortable for the cow
What is the best type of milking cow?
Jersey
Why are some breeds of beef cattle referred to as sire breeds and some as dam breeds?
"Sire" breeds, also called terminal breeds, are those that are best used for breeding calves that are best for beef production (being fed and slaughtered for beef.) "Dam" breeds, also called maternal breeds, are those that are best used for breeding replacement animals like bulls and heifers that are used in breeding herds. Now as to why such breeds are called terminal or maternal breeds are because they have certain genetic characteristics that entitle them to be best used for raising calves for beef or for the breeding herd. This shows you that not all breeds are the same as the other and have the same genetic characteristics as another. For instance, Charolais cattle are best used as a terminal breed versus Shorthorn because of the ability of calves to grow quickly and gain weight in a shorter amount of time than Shorthorns. Shorthorns are best used as a maternal breed because they have better mothering, calving and milking ability than Charolais do and thus take less labour to care for and raise calves than Charolais do.
When do you separate calf from bulls?
This question is asked in quite an awkward manner: are you asking about separating young calves (or a young calf) from a herd of bulls, or about separating heifer calves from the bull calves in your herd? Or are you asking about something entirely which wasn't put across very clearly in this question? I'm assuming that you are referring to the middle question: separating heifer calves from the bull calves. The best time to do that is at weaning, which is around 6 to 8 months for a beef herd. When you process your heifers, make sure you give them a shot of lute (or a similar injectable hormone) to make any unknown-pregnant heifers abort, particularly if your herd is highly fertile and the heifers and bulls have hit puberty before they've been weaned, which happens more often than you might think. As for the first question, the calf should be separated from the bull herd immediately, particularly if it's a young animal and needs its dam. A bull that doesn't know what a calf is will physically abuse that calf with the intentions to do harm or even kill. Even though some herd bulls can be great with calves, this isn't true for all of them. This is partly why many producers choose to remove their herd bulls from the cow-herd before the cows start calving.
Do you use iodine on cows?
Only if it's necessary. For example, Iodine is best for dipping the navel on newborn calves to keep it from getting infected, and for dipping teats in before milking for commercial dairy operations. Iodine is also used as a supplement in loose mineral for cattle to eat.
When is the best time have calves?
April to May.
What is a heifer bull?
Heifers have smaller pelvic areas than mature cows do, so they need to be bred to a bull that has, genetically, low birth weights. Heifers are also best bred to yearling bulls(primarily 12 to 18 months of age), which are smaller than the bigger mature bulls and won't increase the chances of crippling the heifers when trying to mount them. Young and/or small bulls tend to have the genetics for siring smaller calves, and heifers have the body size that tend to develop small calves, however, in either case this does not always occur: Yearling bulls are primarily unproven bulls; small bulls may sire large calves; Breed of the yearling bull plays a part in low birthweight genetics; condition, feed and environment play a role in lowbirthweight rates in heifers and cows. Young bulls are not the best because 99% of the time they are unproven sires. In other words, they are virgin bulls, or have never mated with a cow or heifer and produced offspring. They are selected by the rancher because they are expected to produce low birthweight calves out of the heifers, only because the Expected Progeny Differences (EPDs) combined and calculated from the sire and dam, and compared with other bulls of the same breed and raised in the same conditions, says so. Smaller bulls also need to have the EPD numbers to be able to be used on heifers. If there are no papers that come with a small bull that you buy, you are making a big gamble on him. Even EPDs on yearlings are not reliable, especially if you have a 60% chance that that bull will sire large calves instead of small ones. Thus young unproven bulls may have high birth weights that should not be used on heifers; the same goes with smaller bulls. Breed also has a large affect on how the heifers calve out, and what size of calves the bull will sire. For instance, a yearling Simmental bull is put in with about 20 Red Angus heifers. Low birth weight EPDs for the Simmental breed is different from the low birthweight genetics of the Red Angus breed, so there's a higher chance that 10 or 15 of those Red Angus heifers will need assistance. Even using a Red Angus yearling bull that may have the numbers for low birth weights may not sire low birthweight calves in all of the heifers. But, primarily using a Continental bull that is of a breed that is notorious for large calves, like Simmental, Charolais, Maine Anjou and Belgian Blue, for instance, on your heifers, is asking for trouble. Small bulls like Dexters, White Park, Red Poll, etc. tend to sire small calves that are easy for your heifers to pop out. So heifer bulls are chosen through careful selection of genetics, size and breed, with the type of heifers in mind, in order to have a successful, worry-free calving season. If you know what to look for, you will have some happy heifers on your hands.
Many have received the chain email about owning two cows and how different politicians would deal with it If you were to breed one cow and one bull how long until you get a herd?
Well, for one thing there will be a lot of inbreeding and line-breeding going on to produce a herd; that is never a good thing. But really, you already have a herd with just two animals. In order to build up to a bigger herd, without any outside influences and in an ideal world with no illnesses, genetic defects, or environmental hazards, you'd have to be mating the sire to daughters and granddaughters, not to mention the dam herself, to build up your herd. The dam, if she lives to a ripe old age of 20+ years, will be able to produce maybe 18 calves in her lifetime. Of those 18 calves, maybe 50% are female. Half of those females could be mating with their brothers to get 18 more calves each. And so on and so forth. But in reality, it will never work that way. A cow almost always lasts longer than a bull does in a breeding herd, and inbreeding and line-breeding is taboo unless you are working to purify your purebred herd. And many cows don't live as long as 20+ years. Many heifers aren't even kept because they haven't met the standards that the farmer or rancher had established for keeping replacement females; only 20% of all heifers born are kept back as replacements. And these heifers that are kept back cannot be bred to their sire[s] which would be the herdbulls for the main cowherd; they have to be bred to younger, smaller, and unrelated bulls. As for the bulls themselves, many a cow-calf operation steer ALL of their bull calves, and keep zero back as herd bulls. If there are any bull calves that are kept intact, they are all sold to other farms and ranches that need them more than the seller does. And, if one or two bulls are kept back, they cannot be exposed to any kin of their own: mother, sisters, aunties, cousins, grandmothers, 2nd or 3rd cousins, great aunties, etc. They have to breed those females that are unrelated to them. And bulls that are kept back are the best growing, the best conformational bulls that have great parents. In short, they have to be superior to the other bull calves that are born that year or to even his own sire to be kept intact and used for breeding. Lastly, many bulls only last 4 or 5 years as herd bulls before they have to be shipped off to the slaughter plant, because they tend to get a little too smart as how to intimidate and threat their human owner with their greater size and strength.
Advantages of natural mating in cattle?
The biggest advantage is that there's far less work for you, since you don't have to watch your females for signs of heat and have to worry about timing the heats to get the right time to AI them. All you have to do is send the bulls out with the cows and worry about other things on your list like haying and fence repairs.
When is it the best time for bulls to catch there prey and why?
Bulls are male animals that eat grasses. They have no need to catch them.
