I wrote my English 20-1 final exam this afternoon... and now all that is standing between me and an awesome weekend at the Sundre Pro Rodeo is my Biology 20 final tomorrow morning! When it comes to biology I must say us farm and ranch kids sure have an advantage in the biology classroom. Sure, not all of us are straight A students... but we can tell you (in a way only a true farm kid can) how its bred and born, and then some!!
This spring at my place "FN Ranch" (F for my dad's last name Frischke, and N for my mom's and my last name Nybo... not "Effin Ranch" like some people who see it think haha!) we are artificially inseminating (A.I.) 3 heifers, 2 two year olds, 1 three year old, 1 four year old, 1 five year old, and 2 six year old cows from our commercial herd with club calf bull semen. The "A.I. Girls" are quite the varied lot. We've got crosses of just about every breed including Angus, Gelbvieh, Hereford, Saler, Simmental, Shorthorn, and Maine Anjou. The bulls we have used this year are "Tyson", "Walks on Water", "Rainmaker", and "Eye Candy". I am super excited about the calf crop next year!!
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| "Tyson" |
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| "Walks on Water" |
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| "Rainmaker" |
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| "Eye Candy" |
Artificial insemination is a meticulous process that depends largely on good timing and sound herd management. Because we don't have an entire herd of cattle to inseminate we've opted to inseminate on natural heats (when the heifer/cow is naturally "in heat" and ready to be bred) instead of going through the process of synchronizing all of the females to come into heat at the same time. Inseminating on a natural heat has a distinctly greater chance of the heifer or cow actually conceiving (fingers crossed)! The only thing that makes this process more difficult is that you must watch your herd well in advance of the time you want to breed to determine when each animal cycles and mark this on your calendar. When it comes time to breed you will have a better idea of when each animal should be coming into heat, although you still need to watch closely every day for signs of heat such as females riding or being ridden by other cattle, bawling, wandering away from the herd, etc. Roughly twelve hours after you detect an animal that is in standing heat (will stand when mounted by another cow) is optimum time to get the straws (what the semen is in) out of the nitrogen tank (that keeps the semen at the right temperature to stay alive) and get them into your heifer/cow! It's a good idea to have a "clean up" bull out on pasture once everything has been inseminated in case something doesn't catch, and that way you will still get a calf in the spring... even though it might not be from your first pick of a bull.
So there you have it ladies and gentlemen... the adventures of artificial insemination! It's not too glamorous, and you sure get a lot of mosquito bites standing out in the pasture figuring out who's in heat today... but by golly let's hope it's worth it come next spring when I have some big, hairy, awesome show calves on the ground!
