Bulls and Sex of Calves

As we await the arrival of our first calves, this is the time of year we begin thinking about breeding this year and coming up with our plan.

Last year we decided to purchase a bull, use him for a few months and resell him at the local cattle sale.  This did work out for us, but being an older bull with worsening feet, I was very worried something would happen to him before we could get him sold.  Everything worked out fine and he was sold in October and it ended up costing us roughly $300 to breed 5 cows.

Thanks to a very nice woman who raises some of the nicest polled hereford cattle I have ever seen, we will be purchasing our own 2 year old bull. He will not come to our farm until we are done calving this year. His name is Apollo and he is a magnificent looking creature that will add some color to our herd, which is important to us(mainly me).  Everyone in Iowa has black cows and we prefer each cow have it's own look, because they all do have their own personality!

Apollo

I have learned a great deal from this nice older woman whose family has been raising polled herefords since before she was born.  One of the most interesting things I have learned is that the bull "picks" the sex of the calf.  She said that in her experience if the bull lunges to mount the cow, it will almost always produce a male.  If the bull gently atops her, it will produce a female.  So, if the bull is young  and has to kind of jump up there it should produce more males. It has something to do with the difference in speed, agility and longevity of the sperm.  I remember reading this sort of information about people when I was in my baby-making days.

I will be keeping track this year of the sex of our calves born to kind of test this hypothesis.  Our bull last year was a massive 4 year old that I would say did not lunge, so by her rule I predict we should have mostly bull calves.  We shall see!

I hope everyone has an amazing day today! 

Happy April Fools Day!!