22/05/2026
Let the rejoining begin!
A lot of people ask how AI breeding in cattle actually works, so here’s a little insight into what we do here at Heartland.
We are very fortunate to have the skills & know how to do our own artificial breeding via Ai, which in turn gives us more flexibility when it comes to breeding our cows.
Most of the time we AI our cows on natural heat. It may not be the most “efficient” system on paper, but for us it’s a more natural approach that minimises the use of drugs to stimulate cycling and usually leads to a much higher success rate.
Semen is selected & purchased from elite bulls, in our case we usually only Ai with international genetics from Canada 🇨🇦 or the USA 🇺🇸 The semen is collected and is stored frozen in tiny straws inside liquid nitrogen tanks at extremely cold temperatures.
This can be shipped worldwide 🌍 and stored for decades as long as the straws are not compromised. When a cow comes on heat, we select the mating we want for that cow and thaw the semen so it can be used for insemination.
Heat checking is done twice daily. A cow on heat will often stand to be ridden by other cows — or sometimes she’s the one doing the riding 😂🤣 There are also other signs we look for as well. Once we identify a cow standing on heat, she will usually be AI’d the following morning or evening at the optimal time.
One of the really exciting parts is that every calf you see beside its mother is essentially a glimpse into future breeding decisions — almost like seeing the genetics “on display” before the next generation arrives. The calves become a visual guide when selecting future joinings, helping us match cows and bulls to continually improve structure, temperament, phenotype and performance.
When you see a calf at foot on one of our cows, it represents months, sometimes years of planning, thought, many decisions and hard work!
