Bulls are like professional athletes. Once properly developed, they reach full servicing capacity and have a prime of several breeding seasons between the ages of 2-5, and after the age of 6, they are on borrowed time.
For each Tom Brady, who won Super Bowl championships past the age of 40, there are hundreds of the likes of Joe Namath, who peaked early and won a Super Bowl at 25 before knee injuries cut his career short and left him ineffective before the age of 30.
Bottom line, the life of a herd bull is full of perils. Mounting and breeding cows in all sorts of terrain; working on mud, sand, rocks, and snow; potentially fighting with other herd bulls; and the natural service of each female could lead to injury of the feet, legs and sex organs. Over time, even the soundest and most athletic bulls are going to get injured, become more cantankerous and unsafe to have around or potentially fail a breeding soundness exam.
Consider the following:
• If you have a spring-calving cow herd, your bull or bulls are currently “off duty” for the next six to eight months. If your bull weighs 2,000 pounds and will eat 2% of his body weight in forage dry matter hay each day, that is a daily intake of 40 lbs. Over the next 200 days, while your bull is “off duty,” he will consume about 4 tons, or 8,000 lbs. of forage dry matter. If his nutritional requirements will be met with hay valued at $200/ton, that is $800 in feed costs between now and turnout next spring.
• Think about the salvage value of the bull. A recent USDA market report indicates a salvage value of approximately $1/lb., or roughly $2,000 for a 2,000 pound bull.
• As a result of successful selection programs in the purebred sector, younger bulls purchased as yearlings next spring will have the genetic advantage. The table of genetic trends shows the average EPDs by year of birth for Angus cattle. The improvement in genetic potential for calving ease, growth, milk, marbling and muscle is evident over time and indicative of the genetic trend in all beef breeds.
Assess the ages of your herd bulls and current feed costs. Culling older herd bulls now and repopulating with young bulls next spring can add long-term genetic advantages beyond just the savings in winter feed bills. The salvage value plus the savings in feed costs should cover a sizable portion of investing in younger, genetically superior bulls next spring. — Mark Z. Johnson, Oklahoma State University Extension beef cattle breeding specialist
