Bulls, breeding and warts ????

needstoknowmore · #1 04/03/08, 03:20 PM

I just talked to a person about using his bull to breed my heifer. My heifer Lizzy will be 2 years old. she is black angus, could be crossed with something. He seen her while we where talking and did make a comment about his bulls being big. I see Angus bulls advertised with calving ease. I don't want any calving problems. Any way to tell if using his bull might cause problems? The bull is black angus.

If I breed her. It won't happen until at least May. By then she will be out on pasture. Would she need anything else beside all the lush pasture she can eat? Pasture should last until Sept. Oct. when she will go back on quality hay.

And the warts. I had asked somebody about them before, but just got different answers when researching them. She only has one left on her ear. I don't want to expose a whole herd to this problem. But even with the new info I got I am confused about them. If I get the last one off of her, could she still spead it? From what I have read, they say once they get them and then they are gone, the cow is imune to them?

copperhead46 · #2 04/03/08, 03:42 PM

I get a shot from my vet, a wart vaccine, she has to have two shots. Usually they go away on their own, but the vaccine might help them from getting them again. I put a band around them and scrape them with something like sand paper, and then spray with iodine. Seems to work pretty good, the band cuts off the blood supply to the wart and it falls off quicker.
P.J.

randiliana · #3 04/05/08, 02:16 PM

I would want a little info about any bull I was considering breeding to my cow. Even more if I was breeding a heifer!! At the very least, find out what his Birth Weight was. Even better would be EPD's. Just because he is Angus does not make him safe for a heifer. If you pick the right bull, you can use any breed, if you pick the wrong bull, it doesn't matter what breed he is either. Find some info about the bull, then we can help you a lot easier.

As for warts, they are a cosmetic problem. They really don't cause any problems other than they are ugly (unless they happen to be in a bad spot, say around the eyes). You can vaccinate for them, which may or may not work. You can make them bleed/pull them off, which they say will make them go away, or you can leave them alone, and they will go away on their own. They are contagious, but mostly they just affect young animals (under 2 years old) And, once they have had them they are usually immune.

Tiffin · #4 04/05/08, 04:11 PM

One of my heifers had a wart near her eye. I had the vet look at it and he said just leave it alone, there is no harm. Well, it fell off by itself after about 6 months. There hasn't been anymore and none on any of the other cows. So, I guess it is not a problem.

Brisket · #5 04/05/08, 10:46 PM

I couldn't wait to write an answer to the wart problem. I have a cow that is a holstein and she was nine months old and I noticed the first wart on her. within a couple of months she had a load and there were a couple close to her eye. I asked my neighbor about the warts and she said, I quote: just get a rag and spray some wd40 on it and rub it on the warts they will go away. She is sixty plus years old and has been around cows as long as she has walked. I tried it and wouldn't you know it, the warts are gone and have never come back.

FannyMay · #6 04/06/08, 03:29 AM

Hello everyone. I just signed up for homesteading today and was browsing around and saw this thread and decided to throw in my two cents worth. We raise registered Angus cattle and my suggestion on the breeding is to buy or borrow a bull that is registered so you can get a look at those epds that someone earlier mentioned. To someone that has never looked at those they can be confusing. Just remember that you want a low bw and everything else on the higher end. Just because the bull puts out a low bw doesn't mean that the calf is not going to have a high weaning weight(ww) or a high yearling weight(yw) also keep in mind milk production. Milk production is passed from sires and not the mommas. You want a high milk number so that your calf that you have born from him, she will be an excellent milker and her baby will grow really well. To the question of the warts you all are going to think that we are crazy but this really works. Take a pair of plyers or we have a pair of surgical clamps and you pull the wart off and feed it to the cow. It builds up there immunity to the warts. I promise you this works!