Too many bull calves

[thecatzpajamas]

Our herd sire is turning out too many bull calves. is it genetics or diet or both? Any suggestions? I hate to get rid of him, he's great other than all these darn boys....

[thecatzpajamas]

He's 4 yrs old, in the past 3 yrs he's sired 8 males & 1 female so far.

[thecatzpajamas]

hmmm interesting. I will do some more googling.

He's bred several different cows, and they're all coming out with these bull calves. Not all the cows are owned by me. There are a couple of first time heifers in the mix, & some experienced older cows who had heifers in their younger years. all are healthy & well taken care of. Seems like the only constant would be him, since they are from all different ages and different pastures/feed.

[zephyrhillsusan]

Catzpajamas, this is from the "Keeping a Family Cow" ProBoards forum from one of the moderators who is also an AI tech:

"Actually, it's both. [both the bull and the cow]. The bull may provide the actual "X" or "Y" chromosome, but the environment inside the cow's reproductive tract determines which one lives long enough to fertilize the egg. Some cows have a reproductive tract environment that favors the "X", while some cows have a reproductive tract environment that favors the "Y"."
Ann B

homepage.usask.ca/~schmutz/chromosome.html. Check this link out and read the last sentence under the first section, Normal Karyotype.

From what I'm reading (ignoring the wiki responses and just going with the cattle websites), it seems it is the bull that determines the sex, just as in humans, BUT almost all of the sites say that things will eventually even out statistically close to 50 pct male-female except for the rare bull. So hopefully if you give your guy some more time you'll eventually get some heifers. Unless he turns out to be a rare bull! He sounds perfect if you're raising beef. I can imagine how frustrating it is wanting a heifer and never getting one. Good luck for the future.

[wagradexters]

By 30th June 1998 we had bred 13 female, 1 freemartin & 28 male Dexter calves.
We began to get closer to even annual score when our cattle came out of the acid Au bush and on to marginal pasture.
So far we are up to a Dexter breeding total of 168 female, 1 freemartin & 190 male calves.
Bulls have never made a difference to the calf gender ratio, but they do dictate the length of gestation.
Margaret

[otf]

Easiest solution is BEEF! Not every bull calf qualifies as a herd sire. What I do with most bull calves is castrate (they don’t leave this farm intact unless going to a breeding home), vaccinate (and booster), deworm, wean, and sell in pairs to folks who want to raise their own beef. I won’t sell a calf that’s been raised in a herd to a home where it will be alone (which makes for an unhappy calf more likely to seek out company elsewhere). This gets the animals off of my payroll by 7 months; they’ve had a good start and the new owners have a say in how the animals are fed and raised. There’s far less work involved with bull calves than heifer calves.