Artificial Insemination vs. Bull Breeding

As you may have read, we have a small herd of cows here at our farm.  Most of them are previous 4H projects that we have kept on and bred and kept most of our baby girls.  When we had a couple of them we would send them to another farmer to be bred for a couple months and retrieved them before winter snow hit.  We now, however, had more than a handful to breed.  My son's 4H heifer went to a neighbor for special breeding this year, so that left me with 6 of my own.  

Artificial insemination, as we tried last year, is very time consuming requiring lots of watching and scheduling from me and multiple trips by the vet.  It was very reasonably priced for 3 cows last year, but when we only had 1 calf this year he became one pricey calf!  This year we happened on a bull that was on his way to the salebarn that would cost me a pretty penny, but we could take him to the salebarn and get most of our money back by fall.  That was the whole plan, anyway.  

This black bull was a purebred Angus that had a descent temperament.  I have always been a little nervous to have a bull around!   But, he did well at staying away from us for the most part and we steered clear of him.  

The vet came to preg-check cows after the bull had been here almost 3 months and we no longer saw him breeding any of them for few weeks.  We had 4 confirmed pregnant, 1 probably that jumped the gate before she was checked and 1 possibly that we did not check.  We also had one negative heifer that had been with him for just over 2 months that we took to the sale barn with him.  That was a lot better breeding ratio that the AI last year!  

We sold the bull and only lost $300 on him, which is a small overall cost of breeding possibly 6 cows.  I was hoping for a little more, but one never knows what the salebarn may bring.  

Next year, we are planning to get a bull again as it is overall much easier and much greater breeding ratio.  The only downfall is the huge expense to get one and renting one around here is over twice as much as he actually ended up costing us. 

New Additions To Our Family

We have 2 new additions to our family!!  No, it's not goats as we are still waiting as patiently as possible for them.  We do, however, have 2 new bottle calves.  We weren't really looking too hard yet for the kids' bottle calves for the 4H county fair, but we got a call that a local farmer had one and a week later another call.  We went to look at them and we can't ever say no unless there is something clearly wrong with them!

The first calf is a twin of a heifer that the mother didn't want at first.  When momma finally decided to take her, she wouldn't drink -only from a bottle.  Big farmers don't have much time to bottle feed a bunch of calves!  Lucky for us!  She is all black and a cross between angus and simmental.  She is huge for a twin and doing very well!  She was born on 3/4 and already eating a little Kent calf starter feed.  She will be my daughter's to show at the fair and she has named her Stella.  This is my daughter's first year at the fair, so she got first dibs.

A week later, we got the second call.  Twin angus calves born to a momma that had only enough milk for one.  She is also black and smaller than Stella.  Her sibling is a bull so she will most likely be sold eventually.  She is about normal size for a twin.  She is also doing very well in the barn.  Hopefully these girls will be buddies!  This calf is my son's to show.  He had kind of a time showing his 2nd year bottle calf last year at the fair and wanted to go back to bottle calves at least for this year!  Last year it was very hot and dry and his cow had been cooped up at the fair for a couple of days before the show.  When she got to go out of the barn for the show all she wanted to do was eat grass!  She kept heading for the lawn but he did very well keeping her in line.  It was just a little more work than he intended, I think. 

The kids are enjoying feeding them and "playing" with them and as soon as weather permits they will start the halters on them in the yard.  For now, I may have jumped the gun on spring a little as today is very cold and oh so windy :(  It is the first day of spring, though, and hopefully mother nature realizes that soon!!!!

I had planned to post some pics of the new girls today but chicken out of staying outside long enough to photo them.  I did chores as fast as I could!  I will post them soon, though.  They are cuties!

As always, hope everyone has a great day!!