How To Choose a Bull for Breeding My Family Cow To

If you are trying to figure out how to choose a bull for breeding your family cow to, todays video will help you!

In this video we discuss the traits we looked for when purchasing straws for AI (artificial insemination).

Choosing a bull to breed our cows too was not easy. Traditionally a family cow keeper would look to their local community, find the best looking bull they could and bring him over for a visit. When you choose to do artificial insemination you are opening up your pool of bulls to choose from, as semen straws can literally be shipped all over the world. How do you choose a bull with so many choices to pick from?

K used a very specific criteria when selecting our herd sire. Note – Our family cows are Mini Jerseys, so some of our criteria is focused on the fact that we are breeding Mini Jerseys, but the principles apply to any size cow…

When K was picking the bull we wanted to breed our girls to, she used these 7 traits to look for.

1. Size – Luna, our heifer, has not freshened yet, so making sure her first birth goes smooth is important.  One way to make sure she doesn’t have any issues with the birth is to be sure her calf has a small birth weight. We looked for Mini Jersey bulls who thew small calfs.
2. A2A2 Genetics – If you don’t know what A2A2 genetics are, READ THIS ARTICLE, but the short and quick is that A2 Milk is believed by some to be a healthier milk for humans to drink, and there is a growing demand for A2 cows, especially in the family cow market. We have not decided if A2 milk has shown any health benefits to our family, but we have seen if you want to sell raw milk or family cow calves to your local homesteading market, you will do better with an A2A2 Cow. To ensure your A2A2 cow gives a A2A2 calf, you need to breed her to an A2A2 bull.
3. Good Milking Genetics – Good milking genetics might mean something different depending on your milking system. A family cow keeper wants something different from a dairyman. We focus on good size teats for hand milking, as well as a well attached udder. As far as production goes, we don’t want gallons and gallons a day, as hand milkers this would be hard to handle.
4.  Purebred Mini Jersey Bull – There is some argument over what registry to use in the Mini Jersey world, but we did make sure our bull was a registered bull. A registered bull will have better data for us to make our decisions on, and if both the bull and cow are registered, we will be able to register our calf, which adds value when reselling it.
5. Homozygous Polled – This means the bull has 2 polled genes, which means the bull will not throw horns. A calf with both a Homozygous Polled sire and dam will not need horns removed.
6. Confirmation – Always important when selecting breeding stock, taking a good look at the animal, making sure it has a healthy build.
7. Flashy Calves – We wanted a bull with a history of throwing flashy calves. If you are trying to sell heifers or even bulls as breeding stock, it helps if the calf has a unique look to it. If two calves are for sale, with the exact same qualities in all the other categories above, but one calf looks “flashy” that calf will sell first almost every time.

After looking a long time, we finally settled on a bull called Southern Comfort. When ordering semen we did not order sexed semen, as sexed semen is more expensive, not guaranteed to work, and can cut down on your fertility rate.

What about Grass Fed Genetics? You will notice we also didn’t talk about choosing grass-fed genetics. There is no grass-fed gene to select when breeding cows, as all cows are ruminants they all should be fed grass.

That said, some breeders are focusing on producing lines that seem to perform better on all grass feeding systems. These producers are breeding for traits that help a cow produce and thrive on just pasture, good legs, longevity, smaller size and production, and when selecting a family cow for your homestead, looking to a line that has been bred to succeed on grass only systems is a good idea.

Remember, though, just because a line succeeds on grass only doesn’t mean they will thrive on your own pasture with no other inputs. Good pasture and management are a must on grass only systems.

It took us a while to find the right sire for our herd. We are very excited to see what his calves look like this fall!