Today began our first day of AI-ing.
That’s Artificial Insemination for those of you new to ranching/or my blog.
InSEMENation… there… I saved you looking it up in dictionary.com
as in fertility… baby calves… semen.
“But…
But…
You have bulls!”
“Yes, we do.”
We have AI’d our first calf heifers for the past few years. Two reasons… You can buy semen from new unrelated bulls for a relatively good price. This way everyone gets pregnant at once, and, theoretically, will all have babies close together… (think insane high school girls) thereby shortening our calving season. Our older cows are still “au natural” with bulls.
Whoops. We do put a bull in to “cover” what we’ve missed with these young girls…just in case.
Today though… it was weigh the heifer (we track their weights until fall when we choose which ones to keep)… then sort (we have more heifers than we have semen…) then give them the shot of prostaglandin. The shot should kick them all into estrus… the next few days we will actually inseminate them.
Today was a long day of standing looking at this…
And this…
Soon you are tired, dusty, hot, and windblown. It’s a wonderful job.
Some people got to stand in the shade.
That’s OK. Daniel’s giving the shots of prostaglandin… something girls should avoid. The tarp is to keep the sunlight off of the prostaglandin, the semen, and to keep the girls quiet. Ambiance of sorts.
Plus, it’s supposed to rain on Saturday.
This is the first year it’ll just be my kids doing the AI-ing. No professional to fall back on with the difficult ones. They’ve graduated. Again.
For those of you new to this process… and if you desire to learn more about this go here. If you REALLY *are* curious and aren’t currently going oooooh.
ick.
nasty.
gross.
sick.
yuck.
Then check out this more detailed page from last year.
As this winds down, cowboying starts, and then branding… so make sure you tell your friends to stop by… it’s going to be a busy week at the Greet Ranch!
Find me here!
