CAB said:
This question & the answers always gets under my skin a little. Not @ anyone here but the thing is, if you ask this question to an "expert", they'll almost always answer the same #, 20 to 25 head/ bull. This makes absolutely no sense to me. They never ask about location of the herd and how many acres per cow or anything. To me a bull in NE Missouri with pasture requirement per head of 3 acres can sure handle quite a few more cows than a bull in the middle of NM with pasture requirements of 60 acres per cow. So IMO we would need to know more about where and how you are going to be breeding your cow herd to make any recommendations that make any sense.
This bull we leased about 60 days ago, we put on about 20 young cows (2nd calve) then this week we've put him on about 36 older cows. The young cows we had in about a 300 acre pasture, good water good hay. We're in Central TX. Feed some cottonseed and rotate some with cubes (limited). Pastures a little rough due to drought (but better than most around these parts) some grass with recent rains.
The cows are in our 500 acre pasture. The bull though we have now found out really didn't service many cows in his past. Maybe 5-10 per season. He's a good looking thing. He seems very aggressive but while watching him he doesn't seem to be 'getting it in there' so to speak, or staying up there long enough. IDK been watching him the past two afternoons.
We had some bad luck with another bull last year we bought from a very reputable South TX breeder... got one calf out of him! Has but us way behind now this year. Had to return him for our money back. Now this. Hoping this guy is getting it done and maybe just has had a couple 'off days'. Those first group of cows we should know if he got em real soon.
Now I wish we'd of just AI'd like I wanted to. Then use our clean up bull.