09/03/2026
This morning, my main man Mo and I got the cows locked up. We (I) took blood samples from the underside of the cows’ tails to confirm if they’re pregnant. My guy patiently waited and watched safely from the buggy (or side by side for those of you who don’t call it that like a hick 😅). I can usually tell if they’re pregnant or not simply because they do not come back in to heat 21 days, give or take, after we breed. Some of them are a bit tricky, so we always confirm all pregnancies with a blood test, and they are all bred! One was right at the 28 day mark, which is the earliest you can test, so you can see I tested her blood twice just to be extra sure there was a VERY faint line showing. We have 5 more to go, or possibly only 4 more if Lady stuck earlier this week. We will be able to test her in a few weeks, but I always watch closely for heats.
Also, for those who are new, we artificially inseminate our cattle for the most part. We strive for top tier genetics, so we really like to diversify our gene pool and use several different bulls on the girls. Next year, I have plans for the two bulls I kept from this calving season. It gets very expensive to purchase semen, pay for the arm fee, and buy the bull certificate so that we can register calves. By the time it’s all said and done, it costs about $100 per calf on the conservative side to complete this process.
