Are Bulls too Dangerous to Keep?

Agmantoo, I too have never taken any crap from a beef bull and have had them around for years with no problem. Dairy bulls seem to be more aggressive, I think maybe because they are bottle feed and trhink you are one of them. It may just be in their nature I don`t know but I don`t plan on keeping any bull around very long. Anyone remember the old bull blinds the old timers use to put on the bulls so they couldn`t see you ?? Thanks Marc.

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I've been known to carry a club out to the barn with me every morning and work the young jersey over to the point of him running to the far end of the pasture everytime he see's me coming.
A ring and chain in the nose is also a deterent for a feisty bull!

All the old dairy barns around here have a cage made of steel pipe in one corner. It was for the bull.

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Libertarindependent

[QUOTE=okie;4176891]I've been known to carry a club out to the barn with me every morning and work the young jersey over to the point of him running to the far end of the pasture everytime he see's me coming.
A ring and chain in the nose is also a deterent for a feisty bull![/QUOT

Just keep up that sort of foolishness and, probably sooner than later, your name will appear on the obit page with a sentence saying "he was killed by a Jersey bull".

Our neighbor, annoyed by his Angus bull butting the Bushhog around, decided to "teach him a lesson".

He went to the house got an aluminum ball bat went back, squared off on the bull and laid a whop on him. He told me swinging the bat was the last he remembered till he awoke in the intensive care room. It happened so quick he literally hadn’t seen and didn't know what happened to him.

That lesson he "taught" the bull cost him several fractured ribs, a punctured lung, and a badly bruised liver, caused by the bull rolling him around while trying to gore him, and then kneeling on him. Then the bull slammed him into the gate and he suffered a severe compound leg fracture, a bad concussion, assorted other scrapes, cuts, internal and external bruises, and had to have a total knee replacement;

He survived only because the bull shoved him under the gate, because the bull was polled, and most fortunately because his wife saw what happened and got emergency services quickly.

That was the physical cost, no telling what the monetary cost was, he had a lot of surgery and rehab and spent 16 days in the hospital and has been off work for 3 months.

I asked him what in the world he was thinking about, smacking an agitated 2000 pound bull with a little piece of aluminum? His answer was: “I don't know, dumbest da-n thing I've ever done in my life".

You might want to seriously consider shipping that bull..............yesterday. If you keep on what you are doing I suspect he will eventually get you.

Thanks a lot everyone. This advice is appreciated. We have decided to buy two from this guy and they will definitely be steered.

Agmantoo, I will definitely not want that chasing me. They are gorgeous though.

Fancimilker, when the time comes I will definitely take your advice and only keep a bull long enough to breed my girls before he gets shipped off. This will be a while from now though. We do not have plans to breed anytime soon.

We are very new to farming (obviously since I didn't know bulls and steers were that different in temperaments, feel kinda silly now lol). The plan so far is to experiment with different animals and see what works best for us and fits our needs. Our main goal at the moment is to provide our own naturally raised food for our family to eat (I like the thought of knowing what I am eating and feeding my family) and sell whatever excess we have before we try to make a business out of anything. Although I would love to make money from our farming, I know that is something that comes with experience. As we experiment with having different animals in our farm, whatever animal/breed we can not handle will be sold. We will definitely keep a dairy cow for our dairy needs, but the steers will be an experiment. My husband really wants to get into selling beef. We are buying two. One we are planning on splitting with a friend who will buy half and the other we will be selling. If things go well, we will continue to buy calves from our neighbor, steer them, then sell them. If things go really well, in the future we will start keeping cows and either borrowing a bull or having them AI'd until we really have the experience needed to handle these animals.

I am so glad you guys wrote all of this. Not that I'm scared because being scared doing what we are doing is just plain silly. But you have given me the respect I need to be able to handle these animals (dairy cow included, even if she is tame). To be honest the first thing my husband and I did when this bull started following us around the farm is pet him on his head. Now we know that is a no, no.

One question I would like to ask though.....Is it OK to keep them with my goats? Would they hurt them?

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~Jen
Married to my best friend and mother of 5.

jlgoinggreen
If you plan on having natural raised beef for your food and to sell you need to concentrate on how to grow high quality pastures.

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Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!

Yes, I am aware. I have been reading the sticky on this list. Anything else (books, websites, etc...) you recommend I familiarize myself with? Remember we are very new to all of this, any advice is appreciated. Thank you.

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~Jen
Married to my best friend and mother of 5.

Goats will be fine. When I was a kid we had a big white weather. He always hung out with the bull. They would butt heads. Kinda funny, a black angus bull with white hair all over his face.

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Flaming Xtian
I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
Mahatma Gandhi


Libertarindependent

Our goats share pastures with our cows/bulls, but they need their own barn space. The size difference is just too great to be safe in small enclosed spaces.
Our cows do not get to go in the barn, as they shelter under the trees in bad weather. So all I do is put a board across the barn door at cow chest height. The goats go under the board, the cows are not able.
The one time I had a goat and cow in the barn together(accidental), the results for the goat was almost death. The cow didn't try to hurt the goat........but she was just too big to safely lay down next to her!!

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"Remember, no man is a failure, who has friends" -Clarence

"Although I would love to make money from our farming, I know that is something that comes with experience."

And lots of time, not even then. With experience, you will learn that you may be able to feed out a couple of extra head, sell them, and offset mightily your expenses for feeding the one you eat, perhaps even pay off some fencing or other needed equipment. You can make a wonderful LIFE farming, but making a LIVING from it is quite another thing. Research a lot, continue to ask questions, go SLOWLY!

I'll second that. Unless you are a BIG farm, the chances of making a living off of it are very difficult. Unless you go into one of the speciality areas like organic vegies or something like that. I love farm life, but as far as making a living off of it.....all I can say is I wish. LOL

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"Be still sad heart, and cease repining. Behind the clouds, the sun is shining. Thy fate is the common fate of all. Into each life, a little rain must fall." -Longfellow

In my opinion, starting out with dairy steers is a hard way to go. Unless they got mothers colostrum, they are already testing fate.
Dairy bulls are known to be aggressive, you should never keep one unless you are experienced.
Beef breed bulls, depending on the breed, however can be a different story. Still not 'safe', and you shouldn't without experience.
If you want an animal to raise for meat, then it should be a steer. Steers are fairly tame, but when they hit about 3 1/2 years old, if you keep them too long, they turn into jerks and can cause problems.

We have 5 bulls currently, 2 scottish highlands (they keep their distance, but not at all aggressive), a highland/hereford cross (somewhat jerkish), a texas longhorn (aloof, but docile), and a pinzgauer (biggest baby I've ever seen).

I can pet alot of our cows, steers, and the pinzgauer bull, but in general, the arms length rule applies. Its safer that way, and I can walk in close proximity amongst the herd anytime without too much of a worry.

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A guy a couple of miles away from here also had a similar experience with a bull. Raised him on the bottle. One day he was walking across the pasture and reached over to scratch the bull on the nose. Bull then turned on him and eventually rolled him under the fence. As I recall, he spent several months in the hospital. One of his sons took out a rifle and dropped the bull there in the pasture. As near as they can figure he had been fighting with another bull and lost. When he saw him he figured here is someone I can take it out on.

How many dairy wifes have said, "We still don't know what happened. That bull was just a baby. Then Henry went down to feed him and didn't come back. The only way we knew it was Henry was his coveralls."

Some folks like to grow them out to six months or so before cutting. Really not hard to do if you have a headgate. Plus enough for a cajones sandwich.

I am down to running a dozen cows. I rent-a-bull from a local purebred breeder of Romanolas. Last year it was a young bull servicing his first cows. This year a ten-year-old bull (which is extremely old for a servicing bull) being phased out of his herd. $350 for four months. If I bought and returned one through the sales barn the expenses there would likely be about $150. And I get a known product. He doesn't send me bum bulls, plus he delivers and picks up.

Last Angus bull I had became 'bucket crazy'. You simply didn't get between him and a feed bucket. Put me down and rolled me. He had wheels under him next market day with instructions to the barn staff to not sell him as a breeder.

Although I would love to make money from our farming, I know that is something that comes with experience."

I think I raise calfs as cheap as anybody.....I CAN NOT FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE MONEY ON BULL CALFS UNLESS YOU BUY THEM ONE DAY AND SELL THEM THE NEXT DAY

I do not think making $50 on a calf that u keep feed and bottle feed for a year is making money

I now sell my milk cow bull calfs to a little old lady that makes money on them but she only gets 5 or 6 a year from me and she has that many friends that want to buy a beef

Hmmm.....now you have me stumped. I'm just curious, if you don't make money why do you do it? Right now we are buying the two to feed our family healthier raised meats and have friends who want to buy the other. My dh is hoping to make money in the future doing this if it all works out with these two. Meaning we make "some" money. After reading how many you guys raise per year, I honestly thought it might be a good idea for the future, but now wonder. Why do you guys do it if not to make money?

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~Jen
Married to my best friend and mother of 5.

We make pretty good money on bull calves. We raise and sell them for freezer beef to an established customer base. We don't do it on large scale, nor would I want to, but we do quite well. The heifers become family milk cows.

Our calves, Jersey and JerseyXDexter crosses are dam raised, grown out and finished mostly on grass. We avoid most of the health related and labor issues involved with bought and bottled calves, and it's cheaper.

When the calves are weaned we start milking, buy a few small feeder pigs and grow them out on clabbered milk, grass, garden and orchard surplus, and a little corn, we have a ready market for our pork. We dry off the cows when the hogs are butchered so I don't have to milk in the winter.

OK...now this makes more sense. This is exactly what my husband has planned to do except also add chickens and turkeys, who we've been told
can also get the excess milk.

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~Jen
Married to my best friend and mother of 5.

YOU have to keep in mind I raise dairy HEIFERS ..MOST PEOPLE CAN MAKE MONEY ON THEM if you can keep them alive



Money is money but if you only raise BULLS lets say 10 and make $100 a piece which I fell would be real hard thats a $1000 is that money when you count your time fixing fence worring over a sick one...If you count everything inccluding the stuff you just happen to pick up with your pocket money it will not be anywere near that $1000


If you can raise 5 and get your beef free most people raise those 5 sell 4 and eat the free one why so many people do it, but if those people raised a hundred they could not find a hundred people every year wanting a beef


I guess the question is HOW MUCH is pretty good money...$20...$50..$100...$500... $750 or $1000 on each calf or the average on the herd of calfs from buying to selling


I see holstiens bulls/steers selling at 300 lbs for $.60 a pound thats $180....
buy them for $30
put in milk replacer at $50
thats leaves $100
now put on 200 pounds of meat for that $100 that does not includes grain you start them on or hay
most people do not figure in the cost of GRASS...from taxes ,, fuel for the trator ,,fence repair

it would be easier going to sale barn buy the 300 pounder and then take them up to 700 in a year sell then and eat your free one


but you can make money on a few because you can get more money for them but HOW MANY people do you know buy a beef ever

65284 how many steers do you raise each year ?

we sell beef to an established customer base, that is slowly growing, we raise our own, however. probably half a dozen people buy a quarter from us a year, and we sell to the local schools. they buy a finished animal at a time. we find it most profitable to finish and butcher at 1200-1500 pounds. we have bought dairy steers to raise, but found them not worth the trouble. they just don't thrive like a beef breed without extra grain or supplements. we arent willing to go that route for the amount of trouble it is. I have also been told that dairy steer meat doesnt taste that great, but I myself have never tried it.

Too bad we didn't have better luck with them. A 'wet' dairy bull can be had here all day long for less than 40$. I paid 12, 12.50, and free X3 for the 5 we had.

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