If at First You Don't Succeed...

This is Billy Boy.  He's the Devon bull we've borrowed from a friend to breed two of our three cows.  Well, actually, to breed one cow and one heifer.  One of our Jersey heifers was bred (we think) by a registered Jersey bull that we borrowed from another friend.  She hasn't come back in cycle and if our calendar is right, she should be calving in August.

We watched Billy Boy romance both Rosie and Elsie.  We marked the calendar and began watching intently 18-21 days later.  Elsie did NOT come back in heat.  She's bred.  Rosie on the other hand did.  She was not bred.  She's 14 years old.  That's pretty old for Jersey cows we've owned.  I did read, however, that the record longevity for a Jersey cow was 37 years!!

Billy Boy, the Stud

So 21 days later, we're watching and see that Rosie came back in heat.  Billy Boy was on the scene and took care of business.  You can see by Rosie's crooked tail and the long string of mucous coming from her back side.  We've marked our calendar and will see what happens in 21 days.  Hopefully, she's bred this time.  If not, we'll have to send Billy Boy back home.  Our pasture doesn't have enough grass to support him and our cows, goats, and chickens.

Will the third time be a charm, Rosie?

Speaking of Jersey cows, they are a lot smaller than beef cattle and smaller than a Holstein.  We learned this during the livestock shows back when the kids showed.  In comparison to other animals, our Jerseys were small.  We also learned that after buying a head gate.  When trimming hooves, giving antibiotics, wormer or even for grooming and milking, it is important sometimes to have a head gate.

We purchased one and bolted it to a makeshift chute on the side of the barn.  We installed a gate on a hinge that we push to isolate the cows for treatment.  We learned quickly that the head gate was made for bigger cattle.  As soon as we closed the head gate, all three of the cows were able to wiggle and pull their heads back through!  This won't do.

I had a plan.  Time to invoke redneck engineering.  I ripped a 36" long 2 x 4 and made it a 2 x 2.  Then I purchased 6 carriage head bolts, nuts and washers.  I used my impact to drill holes in the galvanized vertical pipe that makes up the stationary side of the head gate and did the same to the 2 x 2.  Then I bolted it up.  When finished, it looked like this:

As you can see, I don't think they'll be able to wiggle out of the head gate now.  I was going to test it out on Elsie or LuLu (one of the two heifers) Sunday afternoon, but time got away from me. I think it will work.  The gap is much smaller now.

There's a walkway between the garage and the garden and pasture that we call the 'grove.'  A pecan tree and live oak trees create an area of perpetual shade.  The breeze blows in this area on even the stillest of days and I like to think it is a little cooler here than anywhere else on the homestead.

Tricia hung her hammock between the pecan tree and the Bradford pear.  That tree was a free tree I got from the Arbor day foundation.  I planted it temporarily in the yard, intending to move it to a better location one day.  By the time I tried to dig it up, its tap root was well established and I couldn't dig it up.  I let it stay where it was.  At least it serves a newfound purpose as an anchor for a hammock!  Tricia was relaxing...  On the ladder in the background, you can see a swarm trap I have set.  We are trying to catch swarm #3.  No success yet.

The next day when Tricia wasn't in the hammock, I figured I would see how relaxing it was.  I climbed in and was enjoying the comfort when...  Belle, our Great Pyrenees decided she wanted to jump in the hammock too.  The big galoot!

Perhaps tomorrow I can sneak back into the hammock without having 'company' join me.

The Heat is On

In This Post from November we posted about bringing Nick back home.  He was a registered Jersey bull that we borrowed from a friend to breed our two heifers and cow.  We haven't seen LuLu come back into heat and, although we haven't had her palpated, when we look at her back end, we think her bag is starting to grow.

Here's a more close up shot.  Hopefully we're right.  If we are, somewhere in August, she'll be calving.  That's always exciting.

I wish we could say the same for Elsie and Rosie.  We've seen both of them go back into heat.  Nick had stayed here for two cycles.  We thought things were done, but obviously not.  A friend of ours has a breed of cows called Devon.  Devons were brought to Plymouth in 1624 from England.  They are a rare breed that are dual purpose - milk and meat.

We both figured it would be good to have a Devon - Jersey cross and since he has a two year old Bull, it just seemed like we should play matchmaker.  We drove to our friend's home and picked up Billy Boy and brought him back to our place.  Here's Billy Boy:

He's a stout fellow with horns.  The other animals are all keeping their distance from him.  He's walking around the pasture, getting a feel for the new surroundings.

The next day, however, he's become fond of Elsie.  She's expected to come into heat in the next day or so.  Elsie and Billy Boy have been spending time together, but Elsie is not in standing heat yet.  Things won't work until she's in standing heat.  We'll be watching for that.

Until that time, Billy Boy shadows Elsie everywhere she goes...

We estimate she'll get bred in a day or two.  We'll be watching to record the date and plan to keep Billy Boy around for another month to ensure that once bred, Elsie and Rosie don't come back into heat again.  Rosie ought to be ready to be bred in about a week.

And a Bull Comes 'A Courting

We currently have 1 cow (Rosie) and 2 heifers (Elsie & LuLu) on the pasture.  We have watched their activity of when they come in heat and marked it on the calendar.  At least we have for Elsie and Rosie.  They come in heat this week.  We don't really know when LuLu's cycle is.  Cows have a 21 day cycle.  It is important that you introduce a bull during this time for obvious reasons.

I called our neighbor that has a Jersey bull and asked if we could bring our 3 girls down to his place.  Unfortunately, he told me that he just sold his bull.  That's too bad for us.  It was only a short 7 minute drive to get to his home, unload the cows and have them bred.  We made some phone calls and it just so happens that some neighbors a little further down the road have a Jersey bull.  He was agreeable to allowing us to use him.  He told us we could pick him up from his farm and take him back to our place.

Today after church, we did just that.  Russ hooked up the cattle trailer to his truck and we made the ten minute drive, backed up to the chute and prepared to load him up.  After some cajoling, he was in the trailer heading to Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  The bull is gentle, but he's not halter broken.  We got him unloaded into the pasture, but we're scratching our heads on how we're going to load him back up in the trailer when he's finished his work here as we don't have a corral or chute.  We'll cross that bridge when we get there.  We'll have to be real careful having him here, though.  Dairy bulls are a dangerous thing to have around.

We unloaded the fellow and he began checking our his new surroundings.  He's a young bull, but he's larger than our animals.  He very slowly walked around, taking it all in, scoping out the ladies.

Rosie, Elsie, and LuLu circled around him and he got acquainted with them.  There's no romance yet, but in a couple of days, things should start happening.  And if all is successful, we'll have late July/early August calves.

The friend who offered to let us use the old boy said, "We're glad he's able to serve a purpose.  He was kinda taking up space around here."  We're thankful to have him around and we'll be watching the courtship take place in the pasture.  We didn't even ask what his name was!  We might have to make up a name for him for the short time he's here.

Gotta Come up With a Plan B for the Cows

Last week when we were driving back from the hay field, we passed in front of the pasture and I had to stop the truck and get a photo of the cows.  They were all lined up in a row and looking right at us.  It was as if they were posing for an Olan Mills Family Portrait.  (Makes us sad Clarabelle isn't in the photo.)  In the afternoons, the cows like to meander over to the west side of the pasture next to the neighbors and relax in the shade.  Tricia and I were hot and sweaty from loading hay.  The cows were refreshed and rejuvenated in the green grass, shaded by pine trees.

From left to right is: Elsie (Clarabelle's heifer), LuLu (Rosie's heifer), and Rosie.  If you remember, Clarabelle was injured when the cows were going in heat and jumping on one another.  Cows' cycles are 21 days.  It is almost that time again.

This afternoon I contacted the neighbor that lives about 5 miles down the road that we always bring our cows to him to get bred.  Well... bad news.  He informed me that he sold his Jersey bull on the 12th of this month.  It was so darned convenient.  We'd mark off the days and when the cows/heifers were going into heat, we'd drive them down the road for their "date" and then pick them up.

We are frantically calling around, trying to arrange breeding with another Jersey bull.  So far the first call resulted in Strike 1.  The gentleman I called sold both of his earlier this summer during the drought and hasn't replaced them.  He did give us a lead and we'll be following up tomorrow on that lead as well as another.

Dairy bulls are not found in every pasture.  When our cows have bulls, we keep them around for at most two years.  They get real mean.  In fact, they injure/kill more farmers than beef cattle bulls.  When our bulls show the slightest signs of this ornery or bossy behavior, it's off to the slaughterhouse for them.

We will be on the phone tonight and tomorrow, trying to come up with a Plan B for how to get them bred.  We'll take Rosie and Elsie for breeding first and then two months later, we'll bring LuLu.  Hopefully we can find a bull that's not too far away!

We Hope It Will "Take" This Time

We were disappointed to see Luna go into heat again.  We had brought her down the road to be bred about three months ago.  A friend of ours has a registered Jersey bull and charges $100 - $150 stud fee.  The fee is guaranteed in the sense that if the cow is not bred, we keep bringing her back until she becomes pregnant.  The friend only lives about five miles down the road.  The close proximity is important to us because if the cow we bring to have bred is still in milk, we travel to her each day to milk her.

We track our cows' cycles and when we noticed Luna go into heat after having been exposed to the bull, we contacted our friend to schedule the services of his bull, loaded Luna up in the trailer and rolled north on Highway 26 to Hathaway, Louisiana.  We unloaded her from the trailer as the big bull came to check out the new girl. 

On Saturday we got a call from the friend with an update.  The bull and Luna stayed together for several days and although he didn't see the breeding take place, he saw signs of breeding on her tail.  After that the bull and Luna stayed on opposite sides of the pasture.  Hopefully a fertile seed was planted.  We made arrangements to go pick her up Sunday after church.  We hooked up the trailer to Benjamin's truck and made the short trip.

We retrieved Luna and the big bull came up to the fence to tell her goodbye after we got her out.

He had mud caked all over his head.  Bulls are notorious for rubbing their heads all over everything.  What a muddy guy!

When we pulled back up to the house, Luna was excited when she heard the cows at home moo-ing to welcome her back.  She lifted up one ear in anticipation.  I take that back about the cows welcoming her back.  They were probably lamenting her return.  Luna, although a runt, is the bully of the pasture.  She has lots of self-confidence and thinks she is big and bosses the other cows around.
 

We opened the gate and let her back into the pasture.  She glared at us and then trotted off to re-assert herself as Queen of the pasture.

We are hoping that she is bred this time.  One thing that worries us a little is that she is fat like a beef cow instead of a dairy cow.  We have been told sometimes that will affect their ability to become pregnant.  We've got the date marked on the calendar.  If she comes in heat again, we'll make the short trip back to try again.  If at first you don't succeed...

It's Rosie's Turn Now

One (perhaps) strange thing about owning family cows is that we keep track of their reproductive cycles.  Obviously, if you keep milk cows, the object is to keep them in milk.  The only way to do that is to ensure they keep giving birth to calves.  A cow's cycle is roughly every three weeks - from 18 to 24 days.  We keep our eyes open for activity.  What activity, you ask?  Well, when a cow goes in heat, the little bulls begin to follow behind them.  The other cows will actually jump up on the backs of the cow in heat.  It gets kind of crazy.

We watch when this occurs for each cow and mark down the date on a calendar.  Then we begin making plans to get our cows together with a registered Jersey bull.  Sometimes we re-breed with some of our own bull calves, but we try to introduce new genetics to our little herd.  We like to have them bred with a registered Jersey bull as a registered Jersey heifer will bring a higher asking price upon time to sell her.

We have a neighbor down the street that has a nice, big Jersey bull.  He charges a $100 stud fee.  I contacted the neighbor and arranged for us to bring Rosie to his house today.  She should cycle by Wednesday or Thursday of this week.  After evening chores, we loaded her into the trailer.

But it isn't just her we're bringing.  We're bringing Aussie, her bull calf with her.  His job will be to keep her nursed down so we don't have to milk her this week.  If we didn't send him with her, we'd have to drive down every day to milk Rosie out.  This is not the safest thing as we don't know the bull and he may not take to kindly with us having access to "his woman" during her time there.  So we got them both loaded into the trailer.  Rosie is good at getting into the trailer as she's had experience from livestock shows.  Aussie has not, but a bucket of sweet feed is a good motivator if you put it up in the trailer just out of reach.  Pretty soon, both were loaded up and we traveled north for about 4 miles.

We unloaded them into the neighbor's pasture after a short drive.  The animals went through a brief session of introductions and seemed to be getting along well.  The bull is big and grey.  He's in the center of the photo below.

In a few days, once the bull has done his job, our friend will call us and we'll drive back over and pick up Rosie and Aussie.  We'll bring her back home and mark the calendar for roughly 3 weeks and we'll watch her closely.  If she doesn't go back into heat, we'll assume she'd bred and will look forward for a baby calf in May 2020.

What To Do About Daisy?

Daisy is the matriarch of our little dairy herd.  There is no question she is the boss.  Daisy came to us back in 2007 as a baby calf on the side of her momma.  Her mom was named Buttercup, but we called her momma cow.  She died and that leaves Daisy as the oldest Jersey on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.

Here is the plot twist.  After having numerous calves, Daisy now is having problems getting pregnant.  She has been exposed to several bulls over the last 2 years, but for some reason, she can't get pregnant.  We've had the veterinarian come look at her and he can't find any cysts or any reason why she can't conceive.  Recently we took her down the road to a friend's home who has a Jersey bull.  Daisy came in heat, the animals bred, and we took her home.  We took a blood sample to test for pregnancy and... it came back negative.

Tricia and I are faced with a tough decision.  If she can't get pregnant, she is a taker and not a giver - just eating grass.  If she can't get pregnant, she can't produce milk.  If you are a "milk cow" and can't produce milk, you have a serious problem.  We can't keep her on the farm.  We can sell her to the sale barn or we can 'put her in the freezer.'  Although we've eaten bull calves off our herd, the thought of eating Daisy or Rosie, is not a nice thought to entertain.  However, selling her to the sale barn where she would be loaded on a big cattle trailer with dozens of other cows to be transported far away to be butchered is not pleasant either.

So...  We talked to our friend down the road with the Jersey bull and he wants to continue to try to have his bull breed her.  We brought Daisy back to his house today.

According to Tricia's calendar, Daisy should go into heat shortly.  As soon as we got her out of the trailer, she ran to the fence and the bull came near.  We put her into the pasture and the bull immediately started courting her.  Here he is rubbing on her rump with his head.

We are pretty sure that they will breed in the next few days, and we truly hope that Daisy is able to have a calf.

If Daisy only knew the pressure that she is under to have this calf!  She's on the clock.  If she can't get pregnant after a couple more attempts, we'll have to make some hard decisions.

An Update on the Cows

As I watch Daisy, Rosie, and Luna eating grass in the front yard on a gorgeous, albeit hot, afternoon, I realized that I hadn't given an update lately on what's going on with each of our four Jersey cows.  First, Daisy, the herd matriarch is getting up there in age for a milk cow.  She's eleven years old and for some reason hasn't been going in heat.  We want her to calve again and did some research on the Internet.  We gave her a vitamin A injection and brought her and Clarabelle down the road 5 miles to a friend's house who has a registered Jersey bull.

Two days later, the friend called and said that he observed his bull breeding Daisy and that we could go pick her up.  For some reason Clarabelle did not cycle and was not bred.  We left her for another 21 days for her to cycle again and we received word today that the friend's bull bred Clarabelle.  So if all goes well, we'll have two Jersey calves in late March or early April 2019!  Hopefully, Benjamin's truck will be out of the shop tomorrow afternoon and we'll go pick Clarabelle up and bring her home.  In a month or so, we'll have them palpated to ensure they are pregnant.

Now Rosie and Luna are still in milk.  We're milking Rosie mornings and evenings and Luna once a day in the evening.  We'll begin marking the date they go in heat so that we can bring them down to the friend's bull to be bred too.  Daisy didn't calve this year.  Rosie and Clarabelle both had little bulls, Junior and Astro.  They are growing and we'll likely put them in the freezer when they are big enough.  Luna had a stillborn bull calf and we almost lost her in the process, but she's recovered nicely.

"Weighing" Luna

Luna, our little Jersey heifer, was born in late October 2015.  She is small in stature. We have a registered Jersey bull named "Chuck" on the herd, but we have had Luna separated from him until she was big enough to safely breed.  Chuck roams with Daisy and Rosie and Clarabelle.  We recently had our veterinarian make a farm call so that he could palpate the cows.  We found that Chuck had successfully bred both Rosie and Clarabelle.  Daisy was still 'open,' but we saw activity during Daisy's last cycle and think she was exposed.  Hopefully she is now bred.  We'll have to wait and see.

Here's the thing: Chuck is getting big and is starting to get mean and ornery.  He likes to hit you with his head when you walk out in the pasture.  Jersey bulls can be very dangerous and we don't want him on the pasture for much longer.  Our goal (and why we named him Chuck) is for him to breed all of our cows and then send him to the slaughterhouse.  This leads us back to the subject of this post - Luna.

As I was saying, she is small.  Tricia is concerned that she is too small to breed.  The only way to know for sure is to weigh her.  Since we don't have a scale, we use the next best thing - a weighing tape.  This tape has weight markings on it for Holsteins, Guernseys, and Jerseys.  The Jersey markings are the markings on the bottom row. If you look closely, the verbiage along the bottom says, "Lightest Jersey Breeding Weight."  The black line says that the lightest weight for Jerseys is 530 pounds.

You are supposed to put the weighing tape around her body right behind her front legs.  Then put the tape together and the weight is where the tape meets.  In this case, we see that Luna weighs 550 pounds.  She is 20 pounds heavier than the lightest Jersey breeding weight.  Although she is small, according to this, she can safely breed.

This is good news to us.  At some point next week, we will likely put all the cows and heifers together on the pasture.  The next time Luna comes in heat and if Daisy comes in heat again, Chuck can service them.  If successful, we'll have four baby Jersey calves within the next year, some coming as soon as in about 5 months.

Luna has been cordoned off it her own pasture up to this point.  Now that she is of calving age and size as confirmed by the weigh tape, we can introduce her to Chuck.

Tale of the Tape

During the months of December and January, we will be exposing all of our Jersey cows to our Jersey bull so that they all calve within a month of each other. Obviously, since both Daisy and Rosie have been bred numerous times, as soon as we see them come into heat, we've put them into the bullpen with Chuck, the Jersey bull.

The reason we don't just open the gates to the bullpen and let the cows and bull intermingle for the next two months is because of Luna, our Jersey heifer.  She is too young to breed.  Therefore, we keep her cordoned off away from the bull.

Clarabelle, our Jersey heifer, raises another issue of concern.  She's young and has never been bred before.  She was born in June of 2015.  Jerseys' minimum breeding weight should be 550 pounds, but how do we determine the weight without a scale? Well, there is a tape that you put right behind the front legs and it gives a pretty accurate indication of the animal's weight.

You loop the tape around and put it together to give you the weight.  The tape has markings for Jersey, Guernsey, and Holsteins on it.

The Jersey weights are shown on the very bottom of the tape and this clearly shows that Clarabelle weighs 620 pounds, so she is well above the minimum breeding weight of 550 pounds.  Now that we have that determined, we feel much better about putting the bull with everyone except Luna.

Clarabelle weighs 620 pounds

Here is ol' Chuck.  He's happy to be with the ladies as he hasn't been in the same pasture with them for months and months.  In a really strange turn of events, he ran to Rosie, his mother, and began trying to nurse on her!  Rosie began kicking him away.  That is a good thing as he is almost the same size as her and we don't want him drinking our milk.  He continued bothering her and she continued kicking her away.  Unfortunately, during evening milking, Rosie kicked and kicked as Tricia tried to milk her.  I guess she assumed that Tricia was her bull calf, Chuck, trying to get her milk.

Hopefully we'll get all the cows except for Luna exposed to the bull to be bred.  That will give us calving dates of September - October 2017.

Annie Returns Home

In This Blog Post from September 30th we communicated that we brought Annie, our Nubian doe, down the road to a nearby community called Hathaway.  It is there that we know a gentleman who has a Nubian buck.  After Annie's first pregnancy in which she presumably lost her first kid(s), we wanted to get her bred this Fall so that we will have Spring kids.  It is still a mystery to us how she lost her first babies, but it is not productive to theorize about what happened.

Goats go into heat during the fall, and we wanted to make sure that we got her to visit her suitor in time. So in late September we dropped her off at the gentleman's house, and as we walked her to the corral where she was to stay for the breeding period, the buck introduced himself to her. Last week I received a call from the neighbor down the road letting me know that Annie was bred and ready to be picked up and brought home.

He told me that he observed his buck breeding Annie a couple of days after we dropped her off.  He observed semen dripping from her and marked the date on his calendar.  Now, a doe's heat cycle is approximately every 18-21 days, so he watched her beginning on the 17th day after the breeding date that he witnessed and continued watching for signs of her going into heat for about a week after that.

Annie showed no signs of going into heat that he could observe, which tells us that there is a very high probability that the breeding was successful and we'll have a kid or kids in early spring.  A goat has a gestation period of about 150 days, so according to our calculations, Annie's due date should be about March 29, 2016. Baby goats are so cute.  Here is a picture of Annie from April 9, 2013, when she was just born:

Cute little Annie

Annie has grown a lot since then and is about to be a momma herself.  We went and picked her up and this time we put her in a Pet Carrier that we slid into the back of the pickup.  She barely fit into it, but the trip was better than the rodeo we had on the trip over where we laid on top of her in the back of the truck!

We brought a bag of feed for her when we dropped her off and we wanted to pay the gentleman a 'stud fee' for having his buck breed Annie.  He would have none of it and would accept no money. He simply said, "My payment is the pleasure I get out of helping a neighbor."  What a nice thing! We're certainly thinking of something that we can do for him to express our appreciation.  There are many people who are a blessing to us and I feel indebted to them.  We are certainly fortunate to have such giving friends and neighbors!

Annie in the pet carrier

Annie could not wait to get home.  She hopped out of the pet carrier and high-tailed it to the gate of the pasture.  She roamed around, re-familiarizing herself with her home, and I showed her the newcomer, Luna, that she had missed out on:

Little Luna

Daisy was either curious to see Annie or didn't appreciate Annie nosing around her baby.  She quickly came and nudged her away.  The other Jerseys appeared to tell Annie hi.  The little animal family is reunited (and growing!)

Welcome Home, Annie!

It is nice to have Annie back on one hand.  On the other hand, it takes a little getting used to.  Having a goat is like having a nosy, mischievous toddler around - always getting into trouble and going where she's not supposed to be.  Annie is healthy looking and this spring she should deliver a kid or two.  We can't wait for that!

Breeding Annie

Annie is our Nubian goat who is 2 1/2 years old.  We thought that she had been bred back in December and were expecting her to kid in May.  We noticed that she was beginning to show signs that she was about to kid in May as her udder began to swell, but then she never went into labor.  We never found any signs that she miscarried.  It was just strange all around.  To this day we still don't know for certain what happened, but we're not giving up and want to try again.

We began to search the area for Nubian bucks to breed her and fortunately were able to find that a gentleman right down the road about four miles or so that has a Nubian buck.  He also has Jersey bulls and we had taken our cows over to have them bred before, so we are familiar with him and his set-up.  I made arrangements to bring Annie to him so that his buck could breed Annie.  Benjamin and I went into the pasture tonight and found Annie sitting atop the round bale of hay.  We grabbed her by her collar and let her out of the pasture and toward the driveway.  Annie hardly ever gets out of the pasture and she was leery.  What are they up to?  Big Boy was barking his head off and Annie became very nervous and jittery.  She tried to bolt and run, but we held her tightly.

Time to go, Annie

Since Nellie (Annie's mom) died in December, we hadn't had any goat kefir to drink.  Goat kefir is a drinkable yogurt made from goat milk.  We add honey, fruit and a dash of cinnamon and it makes a delicious, healthy breakfast smoothie.  We are anxious to get Annie bred so that she'll kid and be in milk so that we can have goat milk once again.

We don't have a trailer to carry her in, but being that the buck is only four miles down the road, we lifted her into the back of my son's truck and Benjamin and I jumped in the back, holding Annie tightly, as Tricia chauffeured Annie down the road to meet the buck.  I'm sure we were a strange sight riding down the road with a goat in the back of the truck!

Riding in the back of the truck

At one point Annie got very antsy and nervous and began to cry and try to get up, but I laid down on top of her and held her firmly until we reached our destination, pulling her out of the truck with the leash.  The gentleman I spoke with has many goats and dairy cows, along with bees.  He has a nice place.  We began walking Annie into his pasture toward a pen.  He'll isolate Annie and the buck in the corral for however long it takes for her to get bred.  

Immediately the buck came running and jumped on top of her - repeatedly.  But Annie is not in heat yet.  Goats are like deer and only really breed during the fall/winter months.  I don't know for sure how to tell when a doe is in heat, but I did read something that said that just being around a buck will cause a doe to come into heat.

I don't really know how long it will take for successful breeding to take place.  It could be a few days. It could be a few weeks.  We'll just wait and see.  Hopefully, though, Annie will be successfully bred this time around, and she will kid this spring.

Love Is In The Air

Ol' Blue Eyes

Strangers in the night, exchanging glances
Wondering in the night; what were the chances?
We'd be sharing love before the night was through
Something in your eyes was so inviting
Something in your smile was so exciting
Something in my heart told me I must have you
Strangers in the night, two lonely bovines
We were strangers in the night
Up to the moment when we moo'd our first bellow, little did we know
Love was just a glance away, a warm embracing dance away
And ever since that night, we've been together
Lovers at first sight, in love forever
It turned out so right for strangers in the night

Except that it didn't turn out so right...  We discussed in a previous post how we're cow-sitting for Bessie, a registered Jersey cow that a friend wanted bred by our Jersey bull.  As a swap, she's having her Nubian billy goat breed Nellie and Annie, our two Nubian dairy goats.  When we brought Bessie home and unloaded her, we noticed how tall she was.  She was six inches taller than Daisy & Rosie. Bully was able to successfully breed Rosie, but the disparity in size between Bully and Bessie made me unsure that this was going to work.

Bully & Bessie

We were unsure of when Bessie was going to go into heat, so we introduced the two and put them in the same paddock.  The time was just about right.  Bully put on some Barry White music and began wooing Bessie.  She wasn't in standing heat yet, though.  On the very next day she was.  Tricia had binoculars and was observing them from the french doors.

Frustration setting in

Although Bully gave it a good try for about 12 hours, he needs to grow some more before he'd physically be able to get the job done on a tall cow like Bessie.  At the risk of being off-color, Bully would jump up on Bessie, but due to her height, he couldn't reach the strategic location needed to consummate the deal.  It was as if he needed a step ladder.  It's not that he's defective.  Bully is a year and a half old, so he'll continue to grow.  He's successfully bred Rosie, so we know he's 'hot.'  You can see in the picture below the size differential between the two animals.

Ain't gonna happen

When Bessie's cycle ended, we contacted the friend and told her the bad news. Where there is a will, there's a way.  We're going to bring Bessie AND Bully back to her house before Bessie goes into heat again. The friend has a plan.  Her land, being on the River, is hilly.  She's going to put Bessie in position on the downhill side (in some sort of stall?) and place Bully on the uphill side.  That should position her lower and him a little higher, thus giving him some assistance to compensate for and overcome his deficiencies in stature.  She goes back into heat on December 27th, so we'll know then if this plan works or if it was an 'uphill battle.'