Let's Try This Again

Posted on Saturday, May 10, 2008 at 11:18 PM

We have tried and failed to get Chloe AI'd.  Our difficulty mostly lies in not being able to detect her heats.  The vet gave her a cocktail of drugs that are supposed to make her cycle so he can AI her on a certain day.  It didn't work.  So our next idea is to try it the old fashion way...a bull.  I don't prefer the method because I've heard of bulls injuring cows, but nothing else is working so here goes.  A very generous friend of ours offered to put Chloe in with her bull.  This is a shot of me loading her Friday morning.  She was not happy about getting in the trailer and I discovered that a more gentle and coercive approach works better than brute force.  We delivered her successfully to her new beau, so we're hoping in a month or so she'll be bred.  The bull is a Murray Grey, which I've never heard of, but they're supposed to be more docile and breed low birth weight calves.  Fingers crossed.

Our friend mentioned that she's a little on the heavy side, and that may be contributing to her difficulty in getting pregnant.  She's totally right.  Chloe has always been a big girl, but she's gotten fatter over the last 9 months not being pregnant or milking.