Getting a Cow Pregnant
September 16th, 2015 · No Comments · Posted in farming
How could I be so dumb?
After our Jersey heifer Emily gave birth in late March, more experienced farmers told us that we would need to “skip a month” before breeding her again. For some reason I added that month to July, the month we bred her the year previous. That would mean waiting till August to breed her again. But of course I was utterly wrong about the placement of that month. It takes about 30 days for a cow’s uterus to repair after giving birth, but common practice is to give another month’s rest. Which means we could have bred in her June, or just as easily in July again, meaning a new calf in March or April 2016.
To my everlasting chagrin, I ignored the signs Emily was giving us this July that she was ready for a new pregnancy. Her calf is big and healthy. Emily is giving plenty of milk. And since July–when she tried to mount one of the sheep–we haven’t noticed any behavior that might indicate she’s in heat. Oh, she bellows, alright. But it’s usually in response to her calf calling for a meal. How are we supposed to know the difference?
It was so easy the first time around. Every 20 days or so Emily would stop in her tracks and bellow to no one in particular. We timed these outbursts to a day in July, because we wanted her to calf in early spring, just as the new grass was coming up–something akin to how cows might give birth in the wild. And everything fell into place: Emily was inseminated and nine months later calved. But now that autumn is approaching and she still hasn’t been inseminated, we had to call the vet to work a little magic.
I tied Emily to her post in the milking parlor and the vet, wearing what looks like a giant condom the length of his arm up to his shoulder, sticks his hand and a sonogram probe up her butt to examine her uterus. The vet wears a special pair of goggles where the sonogram images appear. After a couple of minutes turning his hand this way and that, he removes the probe and declares she is ready for a hormone injection called Lutalyse, which will cause her to produce an egg for fertilization.
Now we have to keep a very close eye on Emily for any signs she is ready to boogey. That could be the aforementioned bellowing, or some especially affectionate behavior–like trying to climb on me when I enter the paddock to milk her. The vet says she should be ready by Saturday or Sunday at which point we have to quick call the inseminator.
Wish us luck.
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