About 20 people attended a Beef + Lamb New Zealand bull-buying workshop designed to help commercial beef breeders get the most value from their bull selection this year.
The workshop was at the Targeted Breeding centre in Oamaru and facilitated by founder Jo Scott and vet Reuben Brown.
Miss Scott asked Dr Brown what buyers should be looking for when inspecting the testicles of bulls on offer at sales.
"Is bigger always better?" Miss Scott said.
Dr Brown said there was no relationship between testicle size and fertility.
Bulls with massive testicles often had lots of semen but it was of poor quality, Dr Brown said.
Farmers were better buying a bull with smaller testicles carrying high quality semen.
Before sales, potential buyers should get a vet to check the bull had two normal and healthy testicles.
One in 500 bulls at age 2 would have a lump on one of its testicles.
The quality of a bull’s semen could be impacted up to 70 days before it was ejaculated.
Care for the bull such as drenching, lice treatment and sorting scrotal mange should be done at least two months before being put out to serve cows.
The testicles of a bull could be too small or too big.
If the testicles of a bull hung too low it made them prone to injury, he said.
The circumference of a testicle of a 2-year-old bull should be at least 36cm, but the preferred size differed in some bull breeds.
Testicle circumference was not a trait he would primarily focus on when selecting a bull to buy, despite many studs using it as a way to promote their bulls.
A more important trait to select on was temperament.
"No-one wants to work with cattle that are pricks — life is too short."
Farmers should ask bull breeders if they made culling decisions based on temperament and when they did them.
Those culling decisions needed to be made before the bull had been handled too much, which could help hide a "psycho" temperament of a bull.
It was important for commercial farmers to understand what structure they were looking for in a bull, Dr Brown said.
Often commercial farmers sought bulls with perfect claw sets, which stood nicely on their pasterns.
"It’s still important, but it’s not the be-all-and-end-all in regards to what is making you money."
A claw lifting on a bull was less likely to result in a need to cull an animal than issues such as a broken penis or it producing no semen due to an infection.
A bull must be structurally sound enough to get a cow in-calf.
"Fertility and growth is what makes you the money."
Every year, some infertile bulls were sold because of the impact of being fattened up to sale weight and from trucking.
After buying, farmers should regularly check the structural soundness of their bulls, especially between ages 2 and 6.
Older bulls could develop arthritis around the pin bones in their backs, and the pain could limit the number of jumps they could do to mount cows.
If a bull had arthritis and cows were coming on heat at the same time it could result in more empty cows.
Sometimes it was hard to identify if a bull had arthritis, unless they were seen attempting multiple jumps and were reluctant to serve a cow.
The semen quality of a bull should be checked every year by a vet.
Vets could also give bulls a jump test.
To pass the test, a bull must jump three times in 20 minutes and also meet other criteria including having sound back legs and not having a corkscrewed penis.
The checks would provide reassurance to an insurer.
He recommended farmers insure their bulls.
"Breakdowns happen all the time."
However, if a bull broke down, the farmer got money from the bull insurance but they did not get anything for the dry heifers resulting from the broken bull.
Farmers should check the hocks of their bulls because the hocks took most of the weight of the bulls when they were serving cows.
If a bull was not bearing weight uniformly on its hocks, it could suffer a stifle injury.
American sires had a tendency to be too straight in the hock and "blow out", Dr Brown said.
Bulls needed to be in good condition and not overfed and carrying extra weight when serving cows on a hill.
"When you’ve got 1.3tonne and you’re throwing it around to get cows in calf, that’s when you get breakdowns — it’s basic physics."
If a farmer had a limited number of bulls serving their cows over multiple cycles and was not frequently checking on the soundness of their bulls, the impact of the breakdown could be "spectacular".
A farmer in the audience at the field day asked Dr Brown if a buyer was better spending their $13,000 budget on two bulls rather than a "star" bull for $10,000.
"You’ve got an extra bull to kill at the end of its breeding life and in my opinion are more likely to have more cows in-calf — I think there is a lot of good buying out there for commercial guys at the moment, because too many people fall for hype," the farmer said.
Dr Brown said many stud breeders bought bulls at sales to be stud sires and paid lower prices than some commercial breeders at the same auction.
An example was Te Mania Angus Stud in North Canterbury, which bought bull N219 from Waitangi Angus for $9000 in 2017 to use as a stud sire.
"A lot of studs do it. It’s just having the time to do your due diligence and check a bull out — and that’s what some commercial farmers don’t have."
If commercial breeders missed out on buying the number of bulls they required, stud breeders often had "paddock bulls" available to meet the shortfall, he said.
Miss Scott said bull breeders should be doing DNA parentage testing on the bulls they offered.
For the tests, a tissue sample from a bull was sent to a lab to confirm its parentage.
The DNA parentage gave buyers confidence when buying bulls because they could then trust the data in the sale catalogues.
