Quite the matchmaker…

I have spent quite a bit of time this week trying to find the right mate for Opal and Jasmine.

It’s soon going to be time for them to be pregnant and I’ve been busy making arrangements. It will be Jasmine’s first and Opal’s third pregnancies. We need to get them pregnant if we want to have milk again next year.

Our options are: buy a bull of our own, hire someone else’s bull, or do AI, which stands for Artificial Insemination. Even though in general I tend to opt for the natural over the man-made or man-interfered-with, in this case, I’d rather not have a bull here. They can be aggressive and I’m worried about the kids, and then once he’s done his job, what would we do with him?

So we’re going down the AI path. It’s been an interesting-slash-challenging learning experience. First we had to find bull semen. There are companies specializing in selling this, such as “Select Sires” (a very classy name), but Dexters being kind of a not-so-popular breed, it’s a little difficult to find them. Then we had to figure out what we’re looking for in a bull. Is this what online dating is like? We figured we’re looking for good genetics, good personality, good milking lines, and A2/A2 (which is a type of milk which some argue is healthier than A1/A1 or A1/A2 milk, which is most commercial milk sold in the US). Other than that, I don’t know what to look for, although I’m sure there are other important things.

The bulls whose services are being offered by these companies all have very macho names, such as Stardust, Stonewall, Legend and so on. Some of these bulls are very highly sought after, and bring $40 and more per straw, with one straw being good for one mating event.

Someone told us about this one bull who was worth so much money that he went around from farm to farm mating with the ladies with an entire entourage of human attendants who were paid to make sure nothing bad happens to him.

Other than figuring out which bull we want, we also had to find a special tank to store his semen, and an AI technician to inseminate the cows. I found an AI technician nearby who has a tank and who’s willing to inseminate for us for a very low price. Now our job is to figure out when the cows are in heat so that the AI guy can come and inseminate at the right time. Now, if we had a bull, this would be a non-issue. The bull would know, and the cows would know, and everything would work out. But without having a bull here, we have to learn what he instinctively knows, the signs of a cow being in heat. We had an intern working with us earlier this year, and her project was to do research on the specifics of getting cows pregnant. She wrote about heat, and apparently we should be watching for the cows mounting each other (we’ve already seen this) and for changes in their private parts as well as behavior changes. 

Where we are right now is that we still have to find “the right bull”, and figure out when Opal and Jasmine are in heat. We have the tank and AI guy all lined up, and hopefully we’ll figure out the rest soon. We should get Opal pregnant in the next month, and Jasmine soon after that.

That’s what’s going on.