Prevent Bull Fighting to Mitigate Injury in the Offseason

by Macey Mueller for the Red Angus Magazine

Herd bulls are a big investment, but they become an even bigger loss if they end up injured. Just ask Eden, South Dakota, rancher Emit Valnes, who recently lost three of his most valuable registered Red Angus sires to injuries sustained from fighting in the bull pen.

“It was a big blow,” he said. “You spend all this time finding the right bulls and then of course spend tens of thousands of dollars on them, only to see them either get put down or pounded out because they are hurt so badly and are of no use to us on the ranch.”

Valnes runs about 400 Red Angus cows – half registered and half commercial.

Over the years, he has learned to either purchase or keep back an extra high-quality bull good enough for his registered cows and keep a few bulls for his commercial customers who inevitably will also experience injuries right before breeding season.

“It can be frustrating because we know there’s usually going to be a need for a last-minute replacement, but if you end up not using a bull you held back, then you lose out on his value,” he said.

Over the years, Valnes has tried several strategies to reduce fighting and help cut down on injuries, including using large pastures and keeping bulls together that have already been running with each other during the breeding season.

“It really didn’t seem to matter what we did – even the bulls that had been together for 60 days wanted to fight once they got pulled,” he said. “And then about a month before it was time to go back to grass with them, the cows would start cycling and it didn’t matter how far away they were on the ranch, the bulls would just get to fighting.”

Frustrated with the continued loss, Valnes, who has been raising Red Angus cattle for more than 30 years, decided to try some unconventional advice from friend and fellow South Dakota rancher Jared Namken.

“He told me to put a donkey in with our bulls to keep them from fighting,” Valnes said. “We run a registered Quarter Horse operation and have used donkeys for years to break colts and train horses, but I had never heard of using them with the bulls.

“I threw one in with my herd bulls when we pulled them out this past year, and I haven’t had a single bull get hurt.”

Valnes did a bit more research and learned a stud horse will work the same way as a donkey, so he put one of his stud horses in with the bulls and found he was even more aggressive than the donkey at keeping them from fighting.

“If bulls get to pushing around, both the donkey and the stud horse will bite or kick them to separate them and sort them out,” he said. “I used to have 20 bulls out on 40 or 80 acres, but with the donkey or stud horse, they’re in a pen that’s about 100-foot by 200-foot with no problems.

“The only place I haven’t tried them is on our young bulls because we feed them Rumensin to help them convert feed better, but it could kill a horse or donkey.”

Namken, who raises purebred and commercial Red Angus cattle near Lake Norden, South Dakota, has actually been using donkeys with his herd bulls for the past 25 years after repeatedly losing at least one to injury each year.

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