And the Results are In...

If you are milking cows and goats, you must ensure your animals are bred year after year so that they 'freshen.'  If you don't have one, you must locate a bull, or in the case of goats, a buck.  Fortunately, we have friends with registered Jersey bulls and we have our own buck named Buckwheat.  So we arranged a date and hopefully the job was done.  Last week we posted about taking blood samples from several of our animals to determine if they were pregnant.  We mailed the vials of blood to LSU AgCenter in Franklinton, LA to see if we might have baby calves this spring.

It wasn't as easy as it might sound, though.  The first night, we were able to take blood samples from Rosie and Daisy.  We tried and tried to take samples from Clarabelle, but never could hit the vein to get a sample.  The next day we tried again and to our dismay, we never could hit the vein.  We are going to have to get Clarabelle palpated to determine pregnancy.

In the meantime, Tricia got an email from LSU AgCenter with some results.  Drum roll, please....

The cattle test is first.  Animal ID CR09 is for Rosie.  She was born in 2009. As the test shows, she is PREGNANT! This makes sense.  She is four months' pregnant and we've seed a marked decrease in her milk production as her body shifts to growing her calf instead of producing milk.  She'll be calving in January.  Animal ID CD07 is for Daisy.  She was born in 2007.  The test results show she is OPEN or not pregnant.  I'll delve into Daisy's situation tomorrow perhaps.

The next test results are for Annie, our Nubian goat.  Her milk production has fallen off as well and Tricia wanted to test her to see if she is pregnant.  The buck got out one morning and we were wondering if perhaps he bred Annie.  Tricia and I got a sample from the artery in her neck.  Here are the results from Annie:

INCONCLUSIVE.

So we know that we'll have one calf this spring for sure from Rosie.  I am 99% sure Clarabelle is pregnant.  We still need to test Luna.  Although it shows inconclusive, I am 99% sure that Annie is not pregnant.  The goal is to quickly get those animals pregnant that are not, so we will either perform another blood test or palpate the animals that we haven't tested.