Bull testing

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]This little guy figured out how to nurse on his own.

[00:00:05]He's doing good now.

[00:00:09]Reese is getting in the other belted calf cuz it keeps getting on the wrong side of the fence and being naughty.

[00:00:17]Yeah.

[00:00:30]There you go, baby.

[00:00:33]All black. Mhm.

[00:00:35]He's feeling good.

[00:00:37]It's a hole.

[00:00:40]There he goes.

[00:00:45]Doesn't have the best bag, but he's figuring it out.

[00:00:50]Well, it's a day that I don't like doing. I don't know why. Just long and boring and tedious, but we're testing bulls today.

[00:00:58]So, I'm over here getting these yearling bulls walked up to the shed and shoot and Betsy will be here in just a little bit.

[00:01:08]Start testing them.

[00:01:10]And then once I get them lined out, I'm going to go help Gary. He's setting the forms and we're going to pour the walls to the garage today. So, busy day.

[00:01:20]But, these bulls found some fresh green grass in the lead up alley and they're not wanting to go anywhere.

[00:01:26]Hey, bulls.

[00:01:28]They don't seem to want to move. They're worried that I'm going to drive them off of this green grass and they won't get it again. Hey, bulls.

[00:01:36]This is the gentlest bunch of bulls I've had in a while.

[00:01:40]Hey.

[00:01:45]Shoosh.

[00:01:47]Shoosh.

[00:01:51]These are the older bulls, so they'd be three and older in this pen.

[00:01:58]They can be together all year, and as soon as you go to move them or do something, they all think they're tough and have to fight. So, we'll get them pushed down out of the way, so they don't tear this little feedlot pen apart. Hey, go on.

[00:02:17]And these are the 2-year-old bulls that ran separate, so test those behind the yearlings.

[00:02:25]Both. Go away.

[00:02:36]Pivot we got going yesterday is still going, so that's good. Must have paused in that area overnight when it got cold, but restarted on its own this morning, so that's a good sign.

[00:02:51]These are all the 2-year-old bulls that I raised.

[00:02:55]Pretty happy with the way they grew up.

[00:03:00]And then one crippled steer there that just ran with them for the winter.

[00:03:04]I don't push my yearlings at all, so they don't look like much compared to some of those fed up bulls, but then as 2-year-olds, they really grow out good. I won't use those yearlings very hard, maybe on some heifers or clean up, but I forgot to make tags last night, so I'll have to get the numbers off of these yearling bulls and make them a new tag, so they'll have a five to lead it off, and then the number of their dam, so I know what cow they're out of and track them that way.

[00:03:41]Today, we are testing bulls, recent and mine. Um we do it every spring, usually a few weeks before we turn them out.

[00:03:52]Uh Lilly is my assistant for the day, so she'll be helping us.

[00:03:56]And we palpate, make sure everything feels nice and normal, that they don't have any swellings.

[00:04:04]Uh we collect them, get our sample, and then I check it out under the microscope, check for motility, make sure that the semen is moving properly, and then I stain them and count 100 um individual sperm of each bull to make sure that they don't have any morphological problems or changes, right? Broken heads, um or kinked tails, or things like that.

[00:04:31]So, um it's always a big day. We've got I think 24 bulls to check.

[00:04:38]Reece has all those yearling bulls from last year, so we'll see how they do.

[00:04:43]And we'll keep you updated.

[00:04:45]Okay, here we are getting set up. We even have a fancy spot to put stuff for my microscope instead of a truck.

[00:04:54]Got the hydraulic chute.

[00:04:57]Um we have everything in a couple kits, which is handy.

[00:05:03]And this little shed that we have is super nice for this. I think that's what they used it for.

[00:05:13]Hey, y'all ready? Starting now.

[00:05:16]What? I've got 40 of his yearling bulls.

[00:05:18]Oh, good. I got a stride.

[00:05:22]Okay.

[00:05:23]Okay.

[00:05:23]You can start. Here we go. Got all my setup here.

[00:05:30]All the goodies.

[00:05:38]741.

[00:05:41]One of your baby bulls, huh?

[00:05:43]Okay, we're going to start with all of his yearling bulls that he raised. So, we'll see how they do.

[00:05:51]So, when we do our breeding soundness evaluations for bulls, we write down all their information, and we look at eyes, feet, legs, and then all of the reproductive organs, body condition score, scrotal circumference, and then right here is where I write down what I see on the microscope um day of, and then later when I count 100 semen at the clinic, this is where I write down if they have any broken pieces, and then uh just saying that we say they're satisfactory or need to retest or unsatisfactory.

[00:06:33]So, those are our forms. They work really well, um and it's nice to be able to go between years to compare them, as well.

[00:07:26]Oh.

[00:07:36]Okay.

[00:09:14]>> So this is the yearling bull that we popped that abscess on his neck this winter.

[00:09:19]You can see there's just a little lump there.

[00:09:23]Little bit of scar tissue, but not too bad.

[00:09:27]Tested.

[00:09:31]The cow or left to test.

[00:09:35]So As you can see, 752 is the cow's number.

[00:09:41]And then the bull sire name is in the green tag, so Hickok.

[00:09:48]So, I'll replace that green tag with this tag, so 57 52 and then write down his sire.

[00:10:02]It usually takes a little while to get them to collect.

[00:10:06]And then once I get my sample, I check it out under the microscope for good movement and I showed Cooper how to there.

[00:10:14]And then you can watch me make my slides in this one when I stain them. So, they each get the little drops of semen.

[00:10:22]And I have to label everything.

[00:10:25]And then they get the actual live dead stain.

[00:10:29]And then I fan them all out. It stains it a purple color.

[00:10:34]I'll show you how I count them here in a little bit at the end.

[00:10:39]Everything gets labeled.

[00:10:42]And then set up for another one.

[00:10:45]And then we pick everything up.

[00:10:48]I'm going to go count a bunch of slides.

[00:10:52]And the boys are pouring the garage wall right now.

[00:11:01]So, hopefully you can see some footage of that later.

[00:11:07]Okay.

[00:11:08]I've got a good spot on my microscope here. You can see all those lovely sperm. Whoops, I moved.

[00:11:16]So, those are all nice and normal.

[00:11:18]Nice heads, tails, straight, everything's connected. So, that's the goal.

[00:11:25]So, here I am counting all my slides.

[00:11:28]It's quite monotonous, but I'm I'm the end.

[00:11:31]And this one you can see in the center how that one's bent [clears throat] completely in half.

[00:11:38]That is what I would call a midpiece defect. So, that one wouldn't count good. That would be a negative, but then there's all those other normal ones. So, the good outweigh the bad, and that's what we're checking.

[00:11:53]Um so, midpiece defect is that one.

[00:11:57]Uh detached heads that's where the head and the tail are just completely apart.

[00:12:02]Proximal droplet is a little dot right after the head of the semen.

[00:12:07]So, um here's a complete one. So, even though it had nine defects here and nine here, it still passes.

[00:12:16]Um passing is um 40% for motility and 60% for sperm abnormalities or morphology.