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Post by Bóaire Dexters on Jun 10, 2018 14:49:06 GMT -5
This is a newbie question. We have one steer and he was bottle raised and is the one "pet" cow we have. Do you keep your steers with the bulls or the cows? I ask because our steer is 18 months old and mounting the cows coming into heat and the young heifers that are too small to breed but beginning to cycle. Our concern is injury to the heifers. What is considered best practice for herd separation?
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Post by otf on Jun 11, 2018 7:18:53 GMT -5
I agree that it's not good to have young heifers being mounted by older animals (steers or cows) due to the risk of injury. I don't keep a bull with the cows year-round, so whenever I put the bull in a separate pasture, I put an available weaned steer(s) in with him for company. They seemed to do fine. Depending on available pasture space, it probably wouldn't hurt to put the guys in one that is not adjacent to the cows and heifers to reduce the fence line walking by the boys.
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Post by cddexter on Jun 11, 2018 8:53:06 GMT -5
Ditto Gale's remarks. I did keep the bull with the herd year round, but separated out heifers between weaning and rejoining the herd with a new bull. Bull calves weren't steered, but were kept separated between weaning and their final trip down the road... Whenever you reorganize herd combos, there will be some head butting and social status reorganization but that shouldn't cause a problem. If your avatar is your cow, nice looking girl. Congrats. Cheers, c.
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Post by davidmorris on Jun 12, 2018 17:47:36 GMT -5
I'll add the only thing I know. It's normal behavior for steers to mount. It's a commonly used method for determining when to administer AI. There. That's all I know.  |
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Post by littlecowfl on Jun 13, 2018 4:13:19 GMT -5
We do things slightly differently. The main herd has breeding cows, the bull, and a few steers. We separate weaned heifers and either sell them, or return them to the herd when they are ready for breeding (about 16 months). Since we avoid breeding sire to daughters, we usually don't have issues.
It really depends on how you want to structure your herd. An 18 month old steer would never be present in any wild cow herd. As a young bull, he would either lay low or be driven off by the herd bull (almost all young, wild bulls are driven off to form their own bachelor herds until they are substantial enough to challenge a herd bull). Steers, I have noticed, become more obnoxious as they reach slaughter age. It does make things easier to say 'goodbye'. They tend to pester the herd. They do provide rough play for the bull, however. Especially if similar in age. I think our bulls have been the only ones who miss the steers we send to slaughter.
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Post by cddexter on Jun 13, 2018 11:19:08 GMT -5
Ha ha Alicia: exactly my sentiments. It's lucky the young bulls/steers turn obnoxious just at the right time to get rid of them, makes it so much easier to say not just goodbye but good riddance. I've often thought it's a shame we can't do the same thing with some humans...
c.
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Post by cathylee on Jul 20, 2018 14:01:22 GMT -5
My husband won't let me send a very pleasant steer to processing because he likes him so well. I agree his gregarious nature probably helps break the ice with calves. But his becoming obnoxious might help me get him on the trailer before he is geriatric. He did "mount" me the other day when I was sitting on a stool in the pasture getting to know some calves. The front legs of a steer on my shoulders was a pretty unpleasant experience.
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