Aug 31-2008 Learning to A.I.

I appoligize, I've been MIA on blogging lately. We have been really busy here. We are trying to finish hay chopping, since corn will be ready soon. The weather has been really nice here.

My brother is doing chores at our neighbors for the week. He is kinda working on buying into their farm eventually. They have about 60 cows. His girlfriend Heather and him do all the chores and milking almost all of the time now. Everything except anything to do with the cow's female reproductive parts that is ;) Thats up to us girls, or so he says. I think I've got Heather to do it though. I'm amazed how this "city" girl has taken to farming. I think she is better than my brother at milking.

The other day my bro said there was a cow in heat, so I told him Becky or me would come over after chores. Becky went with Abby to a o.b. doctor appt. So, I went over. I don't mind, I like breeding cows- that sounds kinda weird huh... Anyway, my bro showed me the cow and told me what bull to use. He said I should teach Heather to ai. I thought she would hate this idea, but she was actually curious. He had to go into town for feed, so me and Heather went to work. I loaded the ai gun, and pulled a breeding glove on. I kinda jokinly handed Heather a glove and asked Her if she wanted to try it. She actually said she would if it was ok. So, she stuffed a glove in her pocket. When I learned to AI, the instructor put her arm in the cow with mine, so she could "show me" what I was searching for. This really helped me, so since Heather has small hands, I figured we could try it. Lots of lube is required, and I wouldn't try it on a virgin heifer :)

Heather pulled on her glove, and I told her to push her arm in the cow, and I would follow. This was an un-lucky cow I thought. I pushed my arm in beside hers (And to think my brother is missing this) I found the cervix and showed it to Heather. I introduced the ai gun in the cow, and begun guiding it through the vagina. I got it to the cervix, and asked Heather if she wanted to inject the semen. Ipulled my arm out (much to the cows releif). She explored a little, and injected the semen. I asked her what she thought, and she said its really not that bad. She wants to do the next cow on her own, so well see how that goes.

Aug.19 2008 heifer a.i.

Guess what, the CIDR heifers were in heat today. I've never actually seen anything like it. They were one big group of humping whores. The only problem was they wouldn't go into the head chute, they just stood there. Hence, standing heat I guess.

So, I told Becky to just try and breed them loose. I've done it before, with mixed results. It actually worked this time. I kept loading the ai gun, and Becky kept putting the semen in the heifers. They stood as quiet as could be... until there were two left. Guess who? The crazy *****, and a heifer we didn't put a cidr in because we thought she was too young. But, she was now in heat too.

We finally got crazy cow in the chute. But, everytime Becky tried to enter her, the dumb thing would go down. So, Becky went to her level, litterly. She bred her laying down. She said it was really easy because her repro tract was farther back. Maybe we discovered an easier way to AI? It sure was funny looking though.

And as for the younger heifer. We decided she was big enough, even though we normally breed our heifers quite a bit bigger. Somehow this one became my job to breed. I loaded the gun, pulled on a glove, and "generously" lubed my hand and arm. I figured I better for this one. I tried breeding her loose. She stood still, but when I had to push in her further she would move. Understandable, it probably was pretty uncomfortable. So we got her in the alley behind the head chute, but she wouldn't go any further. I had already loaded the semen in the gun (it was inside my shirt by the way:) , so we didn't have alot of time to mess around. I went up behind her and tried again. This time, it worked.

So, the cidrs seemed to do a good job. We will prob. use them again.

8/17/08 She's pregnant

Checked on our cidr heifers this morning, nothing.

Big news: My older sister Abby is pregnant!!! Her husband mark and her have been trying for a while, so they are both really happy. While milking tonight, I kept teasing her that she should bend over so I could preg test her to be sure she isn't lying... all while pulling on a insemination glove:0
Like that picture in your head...
Yeah, we say anything to each other. They have been going to a fertility doctor and I told her one day that Mark's dick must not work right, so Becky should artificially inseminate you and save some money- she hits pretty hard. I said I would do it myself, but I was just trying to be nice since Becky has smaller hands- she really hits hard!!! (I think I scare her sometimes, heck, I scare myself all the time :)

8/15/08

Still rather cool, loves it!!!!!!

We pulled the CIDRS out of the heifers today. They are getting sick of going through the head chute though. Everyone else seems to dissapear when its time to do anything with them, so its become Kristina and mine's project I guess.

A word of caution when doing this: Stand clear of the heifers back side when pulling out the CIDR. Apparalently, the motion of the cidr comming out of their love hole must trigger a feeling of having to pee, as my little sis found out the hard way. Poor little Kristina, it was really funny though!!!

Now we wait. They should come into heat in the next four days- if it works right.

Aug. 13 2008 Pulling calf

Well, I just got back from helping deliver a calf, that didn't need help beign delivered. Confusing? very. I'll get to this later...

My sister Kristina helped me milk tonight. Shes really a big help. (she just turned 14) She loves everything to do with cows and horses. She has 2 horses. I don't love horses, but I do go for a ride once in a while. We had a visitor tonight when we went to get the cows. Somehow, we aqquired 2 sheep to our herd. I don't know who has sheep around us, but they were really cute.

When we were finishing up with the last couple cows, my brother called. He helps at our neighbors farm. (We don't allow him to touch our cows :) He was milking alone because they were at a seminar. He called saying he thought a cow was calving but nothing happened yet. I asked him how long she had been trying, and he said he noticed her when he started milking. But, nothing had changed. I asked if he had vaginally examined her. (I think he puked because he heard his sister say vagina) But he hadn't checked her- he's afraid of female cow parts I do beleive. He begged me to come take a look. We were done milking, and Kristina wanted to take her horse for a ride. So, she saddled up her pony, and I saddled up my horse and we were on our way.

When we got there, my brother was still milking, but he showed us the cow. She was out in the pasture, but he put her in a maternity pen already. She looked like she was trying to calve. Her tail was up and she would arch her back and push, then lay down. This was a very small cow (Actually a heifer) I thought to be calving even though it was a Jersey. I told my brother to keep milking and us girls would figure this out. I got in the pen and pulled a breeding sleeve out of my pocket. I stuffed a few in there before we left home since I figured it would come to this and didn't want to chance it that the neighbor had any. I pulled it on and went up behind her to do a vag. exam. Keep in mind she was in a maternity pen, but there was still room to move around. Kristina held her tail up and I started going in. She actually stood still pretry well, but was super tight. I couldn't tell if it was because she was so small or that she wasn't calving. I couldn't get in her far enough to know and she wasn't liking my dry glove up her vagina by the way it sounded. (I had brought gloves, but - on any lubricant. So, I sent my lil helper to look around. She came back shortly victorious. (It was an actual tube of ky jelly- I didn't ask where she found it. I squirted some on my hand and resumed my exploration. This time My arm easilly slid in the heifer. Her cervix was dilated pretty good. So, she was either aborting a calf or was actually calving. I continued my exam and went in past her cervix. Sure enough, I felt the calf. I was pretty sure it was dead. I tried pulling it out some, but it was pretty good size. My brother came back to see what all the mooing was about. "your raping that poor cow" he said. You want to do this? i asked. He shut up pretty quick. I lubed her up a little more, and got the calf throough the cervix. I eventually got the pulling chains on. We pulled gently and I went in her and tried to stretch her some every so often. Finally the head emerged, and I'd be damned the calf was alive. We pulled some more and soon there was a little calf on the ground- breathing.
I went in the cow again to check on things, and all seemed well, no tears or anything. I pulled my arm out and stripped my bloody glove off in triumph.

So, this was an excellant end to my day. I don't know how tommorow could be better.

Aug. 10 20088

Today was more normal, if there is such a thing.

We are going to be flushing embryos from a couple of our cows. The technician is from a ways away. She mentioned one of us should learn to do it. She is willing to teach us. Becky is intrestad, so she'll probably give it a try. More to come on this later