Boys Will Be Boys

Springtime on the farm is calving season. Summertime, for the most part, is breeding season.

We put the bulls in with the cows a little over a month ago, and the two big bulls, Seth and Melchizedek each spent part of the month with the milk cow group. I separated the heifers out into another group with a smaller bull, Oscar (plus a yearling bull, Cade).

A cow will cycle about every 21 days, so we're now in the phase where all the cows should have had one chance to get pregnant and we're on round two for those who didn't conceive the first time around. Hopefully the number of cows cycling from here on out will be minimal.

The time came today to put the two groups back together, but I had to do a little bull moving to get ready because I don't need 3 bulls in one group of cows!

First Melchizedek needed to be sorted out of the milk cow group. Not too hard, as we kept him in the holding pen at milking. He wasn't too happy about his ladies heading back to pasture without him, but he didn't cause any problems.

Because the route to the bull pasture included a pass-by of the heifer group where Oscar and Cade were, I decided to set up a polywire in the heifer pasture to keep them away from the lane and leave a good bit of space between Melchizedek and Oscar. I didn't expect Cade to be much of a problem, but Oscar is pretty full of himself sometimes, so I knew there would be trash talking at the very least. This is him in the spring.

Melchizedek weighs several hundred pounds more than Oscar, but Oscar still thinks he could take him. What do you think?

Back to the bull moving...

I got the polywire set up to keep Oscar and company back. But I also needed to get Cade out and send him with Melchizedek back to the bull pasture. So I put him on the other side of the polywire with the intention of getting him in the lane after Melchizedek went by.

Jesse was helping me, Melchizedek was moving along (but doing his share of bellowing back at Oscar all the while), and I was attempting to get Cade into the lane with another polywire when Oscar ran through the first polywire to get closer to Melchizedek so he could make him fight like a man (or something like that). At any rate, he wasn't giving up his ladies without a fight!

Melchizedek turned around and came into the field through the open gap I was trying to get Cade OUT of. Melchizedek effectively blocked the route for Cade to get out as he and Oscar sized each other up on either side of a polywire that wasn't even electrified, and Cade wasn't about to challenge a big bull who looked ready for a fight by trying to walk past him through a narrow area (even though it IS his father).

We were at an impasse for a few seconds, and finally something shifted enough we were able to get Mel and Cade in the lane. I took off running after them to keep them moving quickly straight ahead and hopefully not jump the fence! Have I mentioned I don't like running? I find it's usually associated with cows or dogs doing something they shouldn't, and that's not fun ;) .

As we kept trucking down the lane on this very muggy morning, Oscar had to jump one MORE polywire to keep up with them! Did I mention the current isn't very strong right now because of all the growth of weeds and brush on the fences? Not a good time to have fences without a good zap to them!

When we got to the perimeter of the heifer pasture and the other two had to turn and go through the creek crossing, I tried to scare Oscar back from the fence. Jesse drove the ranger up alongside the fence then and helped deter him while I kept the other two moving.

We got the dogs back on the job then too, and Mel and Cade made it back to the bull pasture in short order with the threat of dog teeth at their heels. Then we had to reunite them with the other bulls, and once we got them all on the same side of the polywire, then they spent the next 25 minutes or more chasing each other all over the paddock because they'd been apart long enough that dominance had to be reestablished.

We gave them another strip of pasture while they were running around and trusted they'd eventually settle down and be civil.

Later in the afternoon I moved Oscar and the heifers in with the milk cow group. He probably thought he'd hit the jackpot with his herd size tripling! He'd better mind his p's and q's though, because if he gets ornery he'll find himself demoted at best, or in the freezer if he's really testy. It's normal for bulls to fight each other to determine dominance, but if a bull shows signs of aggression towards people he'll find himself with a pretty quick one-way ticket to the processor or sale barn. No bull is good enough to put human lives at risk.

Just a few more weeks and then we'll call breeding season over for the year, the boys will all resume their mostly unexciting lives of simply grazing and maybe occasionally head-butting each other, and new life will be growing in the hidden place for the next several months.