Cattle Breeding: Episode 6 (Like Star Wars)

I've taken it easy since we found the body--at least as far as blogging goes. Ranch work has kept up the pace. The next morning, around 6:30, we took off for the third and final round of work to artificially inseminate some of our neighbors' cows. When some cows figure out what people want them to do, especially if it involves unpleasantness, will do precisely the opposite. Luckily, that was not the case with these. Though we do nothing but separate them from their babies, stick them in crowded places, and stick needles into them, they obliged us well in cooperating with herding them a final time into the corral. The calves weren't too crowded; some even laid down for awhile:





Don't worry, though, this is usually the sort of scenery they get to graze in:



The A.I. women arrived around 7:30. They drive a pickup with a big white thing behind it:



The darkness inside is supposed to calm them down, but I can only guess why they painted it white. I think I have a pretty good guess, though.

I did the same thing I've done the last two times: run the chute, placing iron bars in front of and behind cows to keep them moving down the alleyway. Not much to report there. He has one old cow that unfortunately had cancer eye a few years back, and they had to have it removed:



Kinda sad, but he said she was a good cow. At least she has one good eye.

At the end, we got to see how they do the actual A.I. They keep the semen cold in a large container of nitrogen until it's time to use it. It is kept in a longish straw-like piece of plastic which, when the time arrives, is put in a warm solution that brings it back to life. The veterinarian then inserts her right hand in the "number 2" hole (I'm not sure exactly what that did; maybe it moved the cervix in range of the "straw"). She then inserted the straw in the other hole and pushed the contents out, like a syringe. I though it was funny that the vet, as she put her hand in number 2, stored the syringe in the front of her overalls.

Chris, the guy whose cows they were, took us out to lunch afterward. That was appreciated.

We've been doing a lot of hay work, but I'll leave that for another post.