Prepare Your Bulls With A Breeding Soundness Exam

 By Bruce Derksen

 With breeding season approaching for many producers, it is important to not only ready the cow herd for the upcoming months, but also the prospective bull battery.  If your bull or bulls are hold-overs from years past, don’t assume they are ready to perform just because they finished up last year with good results.  It is essential to evaluate the bulls overall well being and condition, as properly managing the situation in early spring can help to avoid unpleasant surprises during pregnancy checking.

Karl Hoppe, Extension Livestock Systems Specialist at NDSU’s Carrington Research Extension Center says, “Bulls are truly athletes.  To do the breeding work they do requires them to be sound, with healthy feet and legs, and in good condition, which means not too fat or too thin.”  Consider what the average bull is faced with over the course of the breeding season.  He could be asked to walk miles every day searching out the females entering heat, then following them for more distance as he waits, eventually propelling his 2000- 2500-pound frame onto them.  All this while being on the lookout for the next female reaching estrus to repeat the cycle.
A breeding soundness exam (BSE) is a uniform method of determining a bull’s likelihood of establishing pregnancy in an appropriate number of healthy, open cycling females in a defined breeding season, and is a good place to begin when assessing bulls.  A thorough physical check including feet and leg structure, body condition, teeth, eyes and overall health is the starting point.
Adele Harty, SDSU Extension Cow/Calf Field Specialist explains that bulls should be at or near a body conditioning score of 5.  “As the breeding season approaches, bulls in moderate BCS should maintain or slightly increase condition so they are slightly above moderate at the beginning of breeding,” Harty said.  During the breeding season, bulls can lose up to 3 pounds per day, thus it is essential for all ages of bulls to enter the season in peak physical condition.
An external and internal check of the reproductive system continues the BSE evaluation.  Scrotal circumference and testicle size are measured and compared to age and breed baseline minimum standards in order to determine a pass or fail result.  The penis and sheath must be examined for abscesses, sores, lesions, scar tissue, warts and hair rings.
Ken Olson, Professor & SDSU Extension Beef Specialist explains that winter can be a stressful time for cattle.  The opportunity for frost-bitten testicles is always high.  Olson says, “This can cause reduced sperm production that may be temporary but is likely to be permanent.”
A semen test should be completed to ensure production of sufficient numbers of live, properly shaped sperm capable of reproduction.  There must be at least 30% progressively motile sperm along with a count of 70 out of 100 that are normal shaped to pass a BSE.
Remember that a BSE does not evaluate a bull’s libido, nor does it ensure that a bull will remain a quality breeder throughout the entire breeding season, therefore it is critical to monitor each individual bull’s interactions with the cow herd to quickly follow up on any potential issues.
Beyond a BSE, it is important to have a Plan B.  The exact timing of the exam can be a balancing act that needs to be based on the body condition and health of each individual bull allowing enough time between the BSE and breeding season to offer the realistic chance for quality bull replacements if required, but not an excessive amount that could skew the fertility results.
Evaluating the breeding soundness of bulls is often a neglected management practice.  A false sense of security can lead to the incorrect belief that previously proven fertile bulls are once again sound.  Considering the actual requirements placed on the bull during the breeding season, it is crucial that he be successful in breeding as many females as possible early in the season.  He may be the most handsome bull in the country but if he isn’t healthy, athletic, physically capable of walking long distances, and in possession of reproductive parts that produce quality motile sperm, pregnancy testing day could produce some very interesting and expensive results.