bedding down bulls

[braunvieh]

For those of you where the temps get really cold, do you put bedding down for your bull calves to prevent frostbite on the testicles? Our young bulls are in a dry lot situation but have good wind protection but we don't use bedding but wondering if I need to. Haven't had a problem in the past but we typically don't have snow on the ground for long here in Kansas like we are already having this year.

 

[kanshow]

I was wondering the same thing about the cows & heifers with their teats & udders.

 

[Jill]

Dickerson's had a heifer at the Expo that had laid down in the ice storm and froze to the ground, had a big chunck of hide missing on her hip.

 

[kanshow]

Ouch.. 

I do know that when we were still considering going down there, our daughter was out rinsing her heifer & she said her hands were sticking to stuff.  That's cold..

 

[CM Cattle]

Ouch..   

I do know that when we were still considering going down there, our daughter was out rinsing her heifer & she said her hands were sticking to stuff.   That's cold..

I usually dont wash when its that cold out side.lol

 

[ValenteRanching]

Up here we have snow for like 4 or 5 months a year and we put bedding out for everything. Usually the bulls will only get a smaller pile of wood chips. Gives them somewhere a little warmer to lay down when it's -10 all winter. The cows usually get fresh bedding once a week, more or less to keep them clean and to keep calves from having to suck on gross teets.

There's alot of ranches that have huge herds and areas for there cows to rotate on for the winter that don't use any bedding at all. They also have alot more tree's then we have in our winter feedlot area so I can see how that would also play a factor.

 

[bovine and equine]

Here in Wisconsin we use corn stalks for the bulls & cows & straw for the youngsters. 

 

[cdncowboy]

We used to bed the heck out of our bull pens through the winter for just that reason, frosty testicled bulls are hard to sell.  Nowadays we keep our herd bulls out on about 20 acres of grass for the winter and seldom give them any bedding, but they have some pretty decent shelterbelts to snuggle up to.  The cow herd will seldom see bedding until calving time, unless we're into a couple a day storm or some bitterly cold weather.

When it comes to selling bulls bedding in cold weather was/is a must.  A little frost can ruin a bull permanently,  even with plenty of bedding we still had this happen a couple times.  They'd happen to lay down in some fresh "stuff" in -30C temps. and it would freeze on, not much one can do about that.