06/23/2025
Let's talk Bulls. ❤️
Photo of Sir Chrome Hayes waiting in the animal walkway next to the parlor.
We get asked about our bull:
Sir Chrome Hayes aka Grills, and his temperament a lot.
So let's dive in a little.
Sir Chrome Hayes is a 100% purebred Jersey Bull. He is registered with AJCA (American Jersey Cattle Association). He is also registered with AMJA (American Miniature Jersey Association).
Sir Chrome Hayes was born December of 2020. We raised him, bottle fed him, and taught him things. 😅
Some say bottle fed bulls are mean, and this can absolutely be true, if boundaries are not set.
We call him Grills (because of the typical jersey grin). 🤣 He knows his name as Grills.
When he was a calf he would want to rub the top of his head on us (horns we're coming in and he was probably itchy). We would bop him (softly) on the nose each time he rubbed us. We also instilled positive reinforcement when he stood still, with his head/chin up, and gave him neck scratches. If he'd lower his head or try and rub us, he'd get bopped on the nose.
He learned real quick what was acceptable and what wasn't.
🚩We should have removed his horns just for our overall safety as a just in case of XYZ. It's definitiely never too late and we can absolutely still have them removed. Time escaped us, and each Fall we said we'd get the vet out, and before you know it, Spring was here. 🫣😅
Now we've never had any issues with his horns or him trying to kill us with them, but we've also never put ourselves in a position where we'd be boxed in or cornered in by our Bull.
Grills was born on a large Dairy in PA, he was sold with other day old bull calves. We bought 3, and got to work on genomic & disease testing all of them (DNA testing) to determine patentage, lineage, etc. He was not sold with registration as many dairies do not bother with registering day old bull calves.
Long story short: One of the 3 calves had the genetics and lineage we desired for a future herd sire. Once we had proof of who is Sire & Dam were, we were able to get him fully registered.
We keep between 5 and 20 cows each year. At minimum he always has 5 cows and a handful of steers to keep him busy.
The cows he breeds and the steers are his herdmates when he isn't breeding cows.
Grills used to live full time with his lady-loves, however last winter we decided to no longer have winter calves and kept him separated from his lady-loves for the first time in his entire life. He was separated from his cows in late Summer and spent his time with his sons (turned steers). He joined his lady loves May 1st of this year (2025). Which from a breeding perspective (Cows) should be bred-back by 60 to 90 days post calving. However, that would put us back into expecting calves in the dead of winter. So the cows were all bred way passed their 60-90 day post calving window. Which in our case, had to be done, again to not have calves drop until early to late Spring.
Ever since he was a calf, he learned patience. He learned the cows were the only ones allowed into the parlor and he had to wait patiently outside until they were done. Our cow-parlor door has a window. And he will sometimes look through the gates window to see what's taking so long.. 😅
Grills has never experienced any pain in his life, (other than a few blood draws), he has custom ear tags, and we never put them on, for we just didn't want to cause him unnecessary pain, and possibly p**s him off. 😉 We could have put them on when he was a calf.. But there was a lot of back and forth with the PA Dairy on why we wanted to have him registered (for they were gatekeeping) their genetics, and by the time we finally were able to register him he was well over a year old.
When he was let back in with his lady-loves he became very ornery. He became a tad bit aggressive; which we expected due to the time he had been away from his lady-loves.
Our property was specifically fenced & cross fenced for cattle, our electric fence charger will knock out a gorilla. We carefully (in the safety) of our Kubota (side by side), drove slowly to get him from his pasture to the pasture where he'd be spending his time with his lady-loves. He pawed at the ground and grunted the entire way. 🙄
After 2 days of being in 24/7 with his lady-loves and getting to release all his frustrations in the world, he calmed down.
Would we have tried to pet him while he was moody? ABSOLUTELY NOT.
Would we have walked near him?
Again. ABSOLUTELY NOT.
Do we trust our Bull? Depends..
There is an old saying don't turn your back on a bull, EVER. And this is a rule we live by.
Can we now walk up to him? Yes, we can.
But we don't coddle him much. He gets neck scratches from behind a gate, and he can be hand fed.
At the end of the day he is a Bull. He can kill anyone of us if we wanted too. So we never put ourselves in a situation, to which we do not have a safe exit route.
He is a gentle bull and a bigger baby. Is he scary? ABSOLUTELY. His Moo is loud and he bellows out of excitement.
Our main Advice is safety. 🙏🙏🙏
If you choose to raise a bull to breed your ladies, always be sure you are safe NO MATTER WHAT.
✅️ Do not ever let your guard down when in the field with a bull.
✅️ Do remove horns. Our boy has his. And he will have them surgically removed this Fall, under full sedation, as he is almost 5 years old.
✅️ Be sure you have strong fences.
✅️ When using a bull for timed breeding, be sure he cannot see the cows. A bull can smell a cow in heat for several miles. So though he couldn't see his ladies, he could definitely smell them, and our hoochie cows would Moo for him, and he'd holler back, but because of our very strong fence charger, he wouldn't dare try to go through the fence.
✅️ Teach the young bull not to rub on you.
✅️ Reinforce positive behavior with neck scratches.
✅️ Don't pet, scratch, touch the top of their head.
✅️ A good head gate & chute is a must for a bull.
✅️ Teach your bull his name.
✅️ Teach your young bull calf respect for you.
✅️ Always have an exit route in the event of a mood shift. (We've never been rushed nor attacked by our bull) but we've never put ourselves in a situation where we could be cornered by him either.
✅️ Stay Safe & Stay Alive ❤️
A bull nose-ring can also be used. Grills has his (still in the box). 🤣 He'll get it inserted once he is sedated. We're big believers in not causing pain if not needed (especially) in a bull.
