What are the problems of normal mating for cattle?

Answer 1

The main problems come with the bull. A bull may be infertile, too big, too small, uninterested, too young, too old, too fat or too thin to be used to mate with your cows. He may become too dangerous for you to handle as well. A bull is worth half of your cow herd, and must be cared for and tested regularly to ensure health and fertility.

You can also have too many bulls for your cow herd. One bull can handle 10 to 20 females, as a minimum, quite easily. You must NEVER have one bull per cow because you can have major problems with fighting and fences getting wrecked having to house so many bulls on one place. All other bulls that are not worth keeping should be sold, or slaughtered for meat because in the end, that's all they're worth.

Your cows health and well being is very important as well. Cows must have good nutrition and be in good body condition to be able to breed on time and settle quickly after being bred. Thin and fat cows tend to be harder to settle than cows in normal body condition.

Just like with bulls, cows must have access to adequate nutrition in order to be able to breed normally. Good feed, water and access to salt and mineral sources are essential to a healthy breeding herd. If you fail to provide this, you will wonder why so many cows are coming up open and why your bull is not as fertile as when you first purchased him.

You can mate heifers too early. Most heifers should be bred by the time they're 15 months of age (some go a little earlier, like 13 or 14 months). If they're bred much earlier than that, this compromises their reproductive organs and able to cycle normally. You can also harm a cow's reproductive organs/cycle if you breed her too soon after she calves. She must have a few of months rest before getting her bred again to allow her to heal up and let her uterus get back to normal size. Cows can go cystic (which adversely affects their breeding ability) as well, though causes of cows getting cysts on their ovaries may be a cause of being bred too soon or even being over-conditioned.

Illnesses can and will affect cattle's ability to breed. Bulls can become infertile if subject to a disease that affects their testes, and cows if they get metritis (uterine infection) so bad that they're no longer able to have a calf. Parasite overload can also affect fertility, not to mention sexually transmitted diseases like Bovine Viral Diarrhea, Trichomoniasis and Vibrosis.