Daisy Comes Home

Daisy is the matriarch of our current Jersey herd.  Back in 2007, she came to us as a baby calf on the side of her mother, Momma Cow.  Momma Cow passed away years back, but Daisy remains.  She's getting up in years a bit and has been having trouble getting bred the last few times we've had her get together with a bull.

We've had her get checked out by our veterinarian, but he cannot find anything wrong with her that would be keeping her from getting pregnant when all the other cows have gotten bred.  So, we have a friend in Hathaway with a registered Jersey bull.  He agreed to let us bring Daisy down to stay for a few cycles with his bull. 

Our friend saw evidence that Daisy was bred by his bull, but this has happened before without her actually becoming pregnant.  Two days ago, blood samples were taken to check to see if Daisy is carrying a calf.  We await the results.  We picked up Daisy and brought her back to home.  She arrived in the trailer and began walking to meet up with the rest of the little herd that she hasn't seen in a couple of months.  There was lots of mooing and bellowing...

Cows go through some sort of a greeting process where they touch noses and then start walking around sniffing each other.

And then they sniff some more...

After a couple of months all the cows are back together again.

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We should hear results of the blood work to confirm pregnancy in about 10 days.  If the results come back that Daisy is open (not pregnant), we'll have to make some hard decisions.  On a three acre pasture, we can't keep cows that can't provide calves.  We'll cross that bridge when we get there, I guess.  In the meantime, we'll pray that Daisy is carrying a calf - a heifer calf!