housing cattle

max12

am planning to put the cattle in over the next few days.

hope someone can give me a bit of advice on it.

i have both bullocks and heifers but don't have enough pens to separate all so i have no choice but to put some heifers and bullocks in the one pen on the slats. is there any chance of bullocks getting hurt if they start rising on the heifers on the slats?

secondly, do people do any dosing on the day they put in cattle or do they always wait a few weeks first. I normally wiat about 3 weeks and then do for fluke but should i do for worms on the day they go in?

5live

Would it be possible to put a few gates in to halve a pen to separate the bulls out? And doseing for type2 worms when you bring them in is ok but the added stress may lead to pneumonia. You probably better off waiting for 2 weeks and dose then. And if you have dairy cattle watch the withdrawl periods for the fluke dose. Some can be over a year until the results of new testing come in late next year

max12

5live wrote: »

Would it be possible to put a few gates in to halve a pen to separate the bulls out? And doseing for type2 worms when you bring them in is ok but the added stress may lead to pneumonia. You probably better off waiting for 2 weeks and dose then. And if you have dairy cattle watch the withdrawl periods for the fluke dose. Some can be over a year until the results of new testing come in late next year

not possible to separate I'm afraid. They are bullocks and not bulls though. I remember us doing it years ago (housing Bullocks with heifers) and cannot ever remember being an issue. hope not anyway.

reilig

If they're bullocks, it won't be an issue. The bullocks won't rise on heifers in heat any more than the other heifers in the pen.

BeeDI

reilig wrote: »

If they're bullocks, it won't be an issue. The bullocks won't rise on heifers in heat any more than the other heifers in the pen.

Is it just me, or do you folks sometimes find it difficult enough to spot heifers or cows bulling when they are in on slats.
Example, is a pen of 6 heifers I had in last winter, which I wanted to AI. I even had the bull in the next pen.
I found it almost impossible to see any positive bulling activity:mad:. The bull was just not interested. Wouldn't mind but he has shown plenty capacity to spot heifers two fields away in summer, and pay uninvited visits:cool:

The heifers themselves showed little interest in mounting on the slats!

B

reilig

BeeDI wrote: »

Is it just me, or do you folks sometimes find it difficult enough to spot heifers or cows bulling when they are in on slats.
Example, is a pen of 6 heifers I had in last winter, which I wanted to AI. I even had the bull in the next pen.
I found it almost impossible to see any positive bulling activity:mad:. The bull was just not interested. Wouldn't mind but he has shown plenty capacity to spot heifers two fields away in summer, and pay uninvited visits:cool:

The heifers themselves showed little interest in mounting on the slats!

B

Yea, very hard to spot and even more so with cows. I close my calves in the creep at night away from the cows which makes them easier to spot. calves only get to suck during the day.

Muckit

Heifers/cows won't allow mounting or bulls won't want to mount if they think they're going to fall/slip.

I bet if the same scenario was set up in a STRAW bedded shed it'd be more obvious to spot heats;)

Tora Bora

Muckit wrote: »

Heifers/cows won't allow mounting or bulls won't want to mount if they think they're going to fall/slip.

I bet if the same scenario was set up in a STRAW bedded shed it'd be more obvious to spot heats;)

I'm thinking about having one pen at least, where the cows have full time access to the creep area. Putting in a creep gate between this creep pen and the creep pen next to it, so calves can skidaddle away from the cows invading their creep area.
This way, I hope to be able to see the bulling ones easier, as I will give it a good dose of straw. We will wait and see how it goes.