Any cattle farmers on here who know much about bulls?

[Prontoe]

I'm worried about my Dad.

Umm - I'm not entirely convinced on this - calling it a Cunt of a Thing makes perfect sense for a farmer, but for his daughter to know absolutely nothing about them? And to think it's gross for a bull to be able to sense when the females are in oestrus?

prontoe we thought the same, possibly the bull in field sign there to deter but got chatting to a neighbour on Friday - street party, socially distanced - and were talking about various routes we'd walked through the hills and fields, and he said there was definitely a bull in that field and he'd seen it twice

Agree - we won't be walking across the field again but do scoot up the side since seeing the sign to the next gate which isn't far.

Cuddley bull.

Get rid of the bull ASAP if he’s got a bad character. My Dad used to have all bulls for bull beef & every now & again he’d get a wrong ‘un. One nearly had him when he was tending to another sick one in the pen. He had it shot. Your Dad knows it’s nasty so it will be, not worth the risk.

Have you ever met a brick wall? No? Let me introduce you to my father.

Is your father my father? 😄

You might see a lot more Beware Bull In'T Field signs now Boris has made an even greater mess of the exercise rules. Boris would make a great name for this bull.

Haha Boris the Bull.

Surely your dad will have to get rid of the bull or he will soon be servicing his own daughters?

OP you don't have a DBull problem, you have a DDad problem

Sorry, it had to be said!

@ragged that looks like a Hereford. They are famously gentle, as a child I remember sitting on one.

You're worried about your father yet your posts have an odd jokey tone. Surely you have contact details for neighbours and relatives that are farmers and can help.

My uncle had a Charolais bull.. I used to take a deep breath and run past his field where he was always at the gate!!
That thing terrified me!!
Your df is a brave brick wall!!

I grew up on a farm. It is normal for the bull to be running with the cows during the summer as they come into heat so that he (the bull) can cover them.
However, if the bull is showing signs of aggression he should sold asap in my opinion. There is no point having good stock and being crippled or dead.
For beef, the cows probably have calves at the moment (?) in which case these can also be very dangerous. Once the bull is finished covering the cows/end of the season, he should be removed from the cows to prevent him from hurting in-calf heifers/cows.

You're worried about your father yet your posts have an odd jokey tone. Surely you have contact details for neighbours and relatives that are farmers and can help.

Go to the neighbours about what? To get them to talk him into getting rid?

I'm worried or I wouldn't have posted. The most I know about farming was when we had to stand in gaps as children for him to get the cattle into the shed. I know nothing about farming. Someone (or two) suggested the AI, so I asked Dad why not the AI and why the bull, and that's the explanation he gave. He can't always see when a cow is 'ready' or 'abulling' as he calls it, so he might miss their fertility window. I have no idea whether they're like humans in that they have once a month when they're fertile. I studied marketing, not farming! I know he won't get rid of this bull as he produces good calves, so that's that. Problem is that I can't just tell him to get rid of the bull because he wouldn't pay a blind bit of notice to me.

Neighbours get involved with pulling calves and such, but essentially, you're working on your own with dangerous animals. Huge animals.
My father mentioned yesterday also that the cows with new calves, you can't approach them either for a few days. He has been farming since he was a toddler (different times 70 years ago) so he knows what he's doing most of the time.

You have to factor in that a bull costs about 2.5k, so it's not just a loss that you can take lightly.

Losing calves is also a huge loss. But he never studied farming or anything like it. He was born into farming and he wouldn't have a head for business. He left school when he was 14.

He briefly worked in London on building sites and had an uncle in Australia who had a job set up for him when he was 18. But his father had arthritis (mostly thought of to be depression), and he asked him to come home to farm the land as he had 4 younger siblings who needed to be put through school. So he went home and worked the farm and I think he regrets that he never got to go to Australia, but he inherited the farm and I suppose he's content enough. He's the eldest sibling.

Yes to keeping cows with calves or in calf separate to most bulls.

And yes - cows with calves, especially just turned out from the sheds, are protective and can run fast! We were enjoying watching them these past few nights, and all their lively shenanigans, but you wouldn't want to get in the way.

Please note if you're walking through a field - keep well away, talk to them so you don't surprise them, never approach or come between cows and calves, and keep your dogs on a lead very close at heel to you. We sadly had a walker's dog killed in recent years close by, and the walker had a lucky escape, purely because they didn't follow this advice.

Problem is that he doesn't have a separate shed for the bull. Well, not one that he couldn't break out of. He has a slatted shed for the cattle, then a huge big shed for the sheep, then some small little sheds (the original sheds of the farm), where he brings the cattle into at times when they're giving birth. At least one of the sheds is used for storage. So he probably only has two small sheds.

Bulls are very fucking strong. They'd easily break out of a small shed. They're like the Mike Tyson of humans. They're cunts lol.

You can't keep a bull locked up on its own either or they go mental. They'd kill themselves trying to break out.

My father does read articles about farming and bulls.

Seems crazy not to just synchronise and AI them in preference of an ill-tempered bull.

I fear for your father. He sounds very determined just like my own DF.
He's too old to be handling any bull and especially not on his own. How many sheep and cows does he have?

About 100 cattle and about 400 sheep. He has them on different farms. He will NOT LISTEN.

The cattle are all on 80 acres - the original farm. The sheep are all on two separate farms that he leases - no idea how many acres.