Mark H said:
Justintime,
Why would you keep a bull around for a year if he can't easily pass a semen test when he is a yearling? Just think if he put the same trait in this sons-you would have a difficult time selling the bulls due to failed semen tests and the damage that can do to your reputation if you sell bulls that do not settle cows is simply not worth the risk in the purebred business. Any bull regardless of breed that fails a semen test as yearling is an automatic cull in my books. I don't play games with cattle either they work or they don't and if they don't work they are on the truck.
The main point is have an objective eye and don't fall in love with a calf that you thought was your best. When he failed the semen test he no longer was your best calf its just that simple. Any bull I buy has semen tests or no sale.
The purebred business is the culling business. Semen test and scrotum circumference measurements have cut down on the number of returns due to non breeding. Back in your Dad's day non breeders were an accepted fact of life and reputation breeders kept back a number of bulls as replacements for non breeders. If you bought a cheap bull you just ate the loss. Now with more economic pressure on cow herds if a bull does not breed you will hear about it more than ever. This means anything I can do to reduce non breeder returns I will do because if I don't it will be reflected in the price received.
Mark,
I should clarify what happened with the Charolais bull I mentioned in my post. This bull was born in May, and was tested as a yearling on two occasions, as we had a breeder interested in buying him. Both times his main problem was high numbers of proximal droplets in his semen, which usually means the bull is just immature.He was barely 12 months old when he was tested so that was quite understandable, especially for a European breed. Because he was a very good bull, we ran him on grass all summer when he was a yearling, thinking that he would either become a herd bull here, or be a powerful bull for the Regina Bull Sale. He was a much better bull than the Charolais bull we had topped this sale at $6000 the year previously.
We decided to enter him in the bull sale, and started in early January to semen test him, as you had to have passed a semen test to sell in this sale. In the next 90 days he was semen tested 5 times, with the highest score being a 50% on the breeding soundness exam. He did not go to the bull sale because he had not passed his semen tests, and it was at this point I decided that he had to go to market... and that is exactly where he would have gone if I had not lost a herd sire. I did keep 4 sons of him as breeding bulls and all four passed their semen tests on their first test.
I agree with your principle about yearling bulls that do not pass a semen test. Maybe I have been fortunate, but I have never had a bull returned because he would not breed, except for two bulls that got injured within a few days from being turned out. I replaced both of these bulls, just on principle, and found out after the fact that they had been turned out in a pasture with 8 mature bulls, so I am fairly certain that their injuries were caused by the other bulls and was not due to a problem of the bulls I had sold. Like most other things there are exceptions to every rule. If the yearling bull I mentioned had been an average bull, he most likely would have been sold in bags of hamburger patties, however, he was an exception to the rule, due to his age and his quality.
We have semen tested hundreds of bulls over the years, and I must say that it is not an exact science. I have seen bulls tested by one local vet with the bulls testing miserably and hardly producing any semen to test. I have seen another vet test these same bulls two weeks later and get a large semen sample that grades in the high 90s for quality.You can guess who I try to book as early as I can to do my semen tests.
A few years ago, I had a rancher from Montana stop in to see if we had any bulls for sale. We were sold out except for 3 bulls that had not passed their semen tests. I told him I could not sell him anything and explained why. He said he liked the bulls and was willing to try them as he did not put much faith in semen tests anyways. He told me he would buy the bulls and take them to Montana and run them on range until mid July when he would turn them into the breeding fields. He said that if any of the bulls did not settle cows he would let me know, and we would make a settlement at that time. He used all three bulls for several breeding seasons and purchased another 11 bulls from me, over the next few years, before he died of a heart attack suddenly.
