Finally Done

This breeding season has been challenging, exciting, and extremely educational for me.  At the start, I set out to A.I. my whole entire herd.  I had carefully thought out matings, bought the necessary drugs to bring them into heat, and set up the barn to accommodate the process.  Throughout the entire process the biggest thing I have learned is that when dealing with A.I. anything can and will happen.

The biggest learning experience of all came on the very first heifer that I A.I.'d.  She came in on her natural heat and 12 hours after seeing her stand, I got everything ready to go.  After loading her in the chute and bringing all of my equipment out I was ready to go.  That's where things went wrong.  First, I pulled the straw out of the cane and thought the canister was right beneath the cane and dropped it and the 4 straw left in the cane all the way to the bottom.  Then, I loaded the straw into the wrong gun and needed handle the semen again and put it in the right gun.  Finally I get inside and nothing feels like what I had been taught or practiced on.  So needless to say I pretty much put the gun in and hoped for the best.

The next heifer that I did worked a lot smoother.  I didn't have any semen malfunctions, everything felt like it should, and I emptied the gun where I should.  After anxiously waiting 18 days to see if they came back into heat, of course the one that sticks is the first heifer I did and the one that went smoothly came back into heat.  That is when I realized that you can do everything right and still not get the expected results.  After that experience breeding has become a lot less stressful and easy going!

I have also learned to expect the unexpected when breeding cows.  Mostly I would bring 4 or 5 at a time into heat using a shot of estrumate and estrotect patches.  Well one day I decided to bring a group of 6 into heat.  So I give them their shots and turn them back out into the little pasture and two mornings later I go out to check cows and notice a new addition to the little pasture.  Well apparently during the night the electric fence charger decided to short out and the cleanup bull was able to jump the fence and breed 4 of the 6 for me!  Needless to say it has been an interesting breeding season for me!

Well that is it for now but be sure to check back for pictures of the calves and cows!

Alex