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| We had bulls for beef cattle but we never ever had a bull for the dairy. I had always heard how dangerous Holstein bulls were bred everything including heifers AI.
Years ago now I read about a study that determined why diary bulls were so dangerous. Beef calves are raised by the cow for several months whereas diary calves are removed from their mothers almost immediately after birth. Because they are raised by humans they view us much more as being one of them. When the typical hormones that cause bulls to eventually fight each other for dominance they view humans much more as their rivals than beef bulls do for that reason so they tend to be much quicker to challenge humans than the typical beef hill would.
Of course that’s not to say that beef bulls aren’t extremely unpredictable and dangerous also, it just explains why at a certain age dairy bulls tend to be even more dangerous than beef bulls.
Another lesson learned that I never even thought of until it happened was when my wife really made a pet out of a cute little super friendly heifer calf. While our cows were always very quiet and tame they did need to be taught to respect us enough to get them to move when we needed them to. That cute little heifer was one very tame and impossible to move cow. She wasn’t going to go anywhere unless it was her idea. Lol. Nothing ever happened but I could see that causing the same dangerous situation as the diary bills though also. A bit of mutual respect and wariness is likely the best situation. | |
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cows - i guess im still a dummy .
