Breeding time

It's that time of year: Breeding time via AI (Artificial Insemination) for our Jersey cow Maggie.

But wait, there's more. After much discussion, we decided to breed Maggie's yearling heifer calf Stormy as well.

Stormy is half-Jersey, half-Angus. She looks very much like an Angus, but she has a lot of Maggie's sweet Jersey disposition. And she's big, bigger than her mama.

Here's a comparison between a Jersey's boney butt and a half-Angus' meaty butt. You can tell which one is bred for milk and which one for meat!

You can also see that Stormy is now taller than her mama.

In fact, it is because of Stormy's sweet disposition that we decided to keep her as a breeder rather than putting her in the freezer and raising another animal for meat. This means Maggie is now the mother of our dairy line, and Stormy will become the mother of our meat line.

Before we could be certain we could breed Stormy, however, we needed to make sure she was able to be handled. She's never been lead-trained and had never worn a halter. If we could get a halter on her, the chances were good she could get bred. If she was too wild, well ... we had space in the freezer.

Getting a halter on Stormy took a couple weeks of strategizing. We prefer to use chain halters (sometimes called restraint halters) on our animals. We've always handled Stormy a lot – scratching her, brushing her, giving her a bit of grain here and there – so we ramped up these efforts during this time. That part was easy since it's nothing we hadn't done before.

Meanwhile Don prepared a stout rope to temporarily confine her. This was set up with a clip that could be adjusted so we could slip the rope over Stormy's head and a slip-knot would tighten the rope, but the clip would prevent the rope from getting too tight and choking her. The idea was to get the rope around her neck, then thread the other end of the rope through an eye-bolt that was already in place on the barn beam. This would, in theory, confine her tightly enough that I could get the halter on her.

The evening came when we went out to the barn, got Maggie and little Lucy outside, and confined Stormy inside. Right away, of course, Stormy knew something was up.

Getting the rope around her neck was easy enough, but every time Don tried to thread the other end of the rope through the eye-bolt, she would yank it out. Finally, more by accident than anything else, we got her cornered against a side of the barn (cows become more or less immobilized when pressed against a wall), and I was able to slip the halter over her head and buckle it on.

Right away we released her, removed the rope, and gave her a lot of fuss and attention, scratches and brushing. Fussing didn't mitigate the indignity of being haltered. She did not like that ropey thing on her face, that's for sure, and sulked about it for a day or two until she got used to it. But get used to it she did, and quickly recovered her normal sweet disposition.

In fact, a funny thing happened. After being haltered, Stormy became our new best friend whenever Don or I were in the barn or corral. She nudged us (sometimes hard) for affection, she submitted to brushing and scratches like never before, and she started leading with a lead-rope with very little effort. She became so affectionate that we started calling her Princess.

At this point, I emailed the AI lady (her name is Andrea) to inquire whether Stormy could simply be tied up while being bred, or whether it was necessary for the heifer to be confined to the milking stall.

Andrea said it was essential that Stormy be confined. During breeding, Andrea would have her arm inserted literally shoulder-deep in Stormy's backside, and the last thing she (Andrea) needed was a broken arm if Stormy got testy. Fair enough.

After this, we started training Princess Stormy to go into the milking stall.

We already knew the head gate wouldn't work for Stormy – her neck is much thicker than Maggie's more slender Jersey neck – but we had an eye-bolt already installed on the opposite beam that we could use to thread a lead rope clipped to her halter and confine her that way.

But that was in the future. First Stormy had to get used to being in the milking stall without feeling panicky.

This was actually easier to accomplish than we anticipated. Stormy spent the first nine months of her life spending the night in the adjacent calf pen, so that whole milking-stall infrastructure already held warm, fuzzy memories for her. In fact, even now we have to keep the calf pen gate closed when Stormy is around, because she'll make a beeline for the calf pen even though she has massively outgrown the space.

Our morning and evening routines became as follows. Don would go into the small space behind the milking stall where the bucket stand was located (this is where Maggie puts her head to eat grain in the mornings when I milk her) with a bucket of grain. I clipped Stormy's halter chain to the lead rope and gently pulled her toward the milking stall, where Don waved the grain enticingly at the other end. Once she was in the stall eating the grain, we made no effort to confine her in any way, though I did scratch and brush her rear end so she would get used to activity back there. When Stormy was finished with her grain, we let her back herself out on her own terms.

This training period was extremely effective. Once or twice Don threaded the lead rope through the eye-bolt just to get Stormy used to being tied up in place, and while she fought it a little bit in a half-hearted sort of way, overall she didn't seem to mind.

Meanwhile the clock was ticking down to when Andrea was planning to come out for the first stage of breeding the animals, which involved estrus synchronization protocols so both Maggie and Stormy could be bred at the same time. This meant giving the animals a shot of prostaglandin as well as inserting a controlled internal drug release (CIDR) device to regulate the estrous cycle.

This took a bit of calculating on Andrea's part. She was traveling from about an hour's drive away, and had to time her first visit with when her second visit would be necessary. In other words, unless we wanted her to breed the animals at midnight, she had to backtrack and time the beginning of the estrus synchronization protocol at a specific hour. (As it turned out, we had to juggle this schedule a bit because a cow's estrus and a heifer's estrus run at slightly different times.)

Andrea arrived on the evening of August 31 to start the process.You can see how suspicious Stormy looks at all the activity.

Beginning with Stormy, we pulled her into the milking stall, gave her some grain, and threaded the end of the lead-rope through the eye-bolt to confine her. Stormy was nervous at Andrea's presence, but what really set her off was when Andrea gave Stormy the prostaglandin shot in the neck. She didn't like that one bit!

She thrashed around a bit, but Don held onto the lead rope grimly, and Stormy really couldn't move much anyway within the confines of the milking stall. Andrea was able to insert the vaginal CIDR device without any problem.

After this, Don unclipped the lead rope from Stormy's halter to release her, and the heifer backed out of the milking stall with alacrity.

Then it was Maggie's turn. Piece o' cake. She barely even twitched at the prostaglandin shot in the neck...

...much less when the CIDR device was inserted. Good ol' Maggie.

Andrea gave us two doses of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH), to be administered to both animals on Day Seven after the prostaglandin shots. We had to make sure these shots were given at exactly the same time of evening as the first shots.

To this end, we made sure to continue giving Stormy another calming week of milking-stall practice, which she did without a problem. However when it came time to give Stormy the GnRH shot in the neck, she thrashed around and bend the needle before the GnRH could be administered. Fortunately we had spare needles (and even more fortunately, knew exactly where they were), so we swapped needles and were able to administer the shot successfully. I also pulled out the CIDR device, which was easy.

Maggie, as before, barely noticed the shot or the removal of the CIDR device.

Now the stage was set for the actual breeding itself. Andrea actually had to come out at two separate times because of the slight difference in estrus cycles between cows and heifers. This added to the cost of the breeding since the most expensive component was the per-mileage travel costs, but oh well.

For breeding Stormy, Andrea had to come over after dark (about 7:30-ish). Since the barn light doesn't shine very well into the livestock side of the gate, much less in the milking stall where Andrea needed to see, Don rigged up a portable halogen shop light and aimed it at the opposite wall, so it would reflect back and provide Andrea with light without blinding her.

Andrea had a number of different straws of semen from which we could choose, stored in a vat of liquid nitrogen. This is the vat.

Inside the vat are holders at the end of rods which hold the straws of frozen semen.

Andrea stocks a variety of beef and dairy breed options.

She required warm water (101F) to thaw the semen before loading it into the insemination gun.

Since this is Stormy's first calf and we wanted to avoid any birthing difficulties, we opted to breed her to a smaller breed. We also wanted her to have a beefy calf we could eventually put in the freezer. Of the available semen Andrea had in stock, we opted for a smaller lowline Angus to breed to Stormy. We also opted not to select the gender of the calf.

Prepping the straw and all the necessary accouterments for the actual breeding took about ten minutes. Don was holding onto Stormy in the stall, who had long since finished her grain and was getting restive. But finally Andrea came in with the straw, ready to breed Stormy.

Sorry if the next bit gets somewhat graphic.

The first thing Andrea did was to don a shoulder-length disposal plastic glove and insert her arm waaaay up Stormy's rectum, feeling around the various organs through the rectal wall. Apparently this technique is used to immobilize the cervix through the rectum. When this was accomplished, Andrea took the insemination gun (pre-loaded with the semen) and inserted it into Stormy's vaginal opening. She had to guide the gun through the vaginal canal into the cervix, which she did by rectal palpation and manipulation through the reproductive tract.

It's hard to se what's going on in the photo below, but the large light-colored thingy at top is Andrea's gloved left arm deep inside Stormy's rectum. Her gloved right hand is guiding the insemination gun up the vaginal tract toward the cervix.

I expected Stormy to be having a hissy fit at this indignity, but in fact she was very calm. Andrea explained that's why this narrow window of a cow's estrus cycle – when they are most receptive to fertilization – is called "standing heat." Cows literally stand still during the breeding process, whether natural or artificial.

This process was actually accomplished fairly quickly. Andrea clearly knew what she was going and got the task done confidently and efficiently. As soon as she was finished, she withdrew her arm as well as the insemination gun, Don unclipped Stormy's halter to release her, and the heifer backed out of the milking stall. Voilà.

That was all Andrea could do that evening. Despite Andrea's competence, Don and I were wiped by the time we staggered back to the house. "Yup, a little shot of whiskey, I think," said Don, one of the very rare times in the last twenty years he's drank anything. He mixed a finger of whiskey with some soda and settled in for the night.

Early the next morning (around 8:30 am), Andrea repeated the process with Maggie. As predicted, this was easier, in part due to Maggie's calmer nature and in part because we knew not to confine Maggie to the milking stall until Andrea had finished prepping the semen and loading the insemination gun.

For Maggie, we chose to breed her to a polled A2/A2 New Zealand bull named Ardachie Zigzag. We also opted to select the gender and chose a heifer. This costs a bit more, but almost guarantees the results.

While shoulder-deep in Maggie's rectal tract, Andrea had a bit of trouble getting the tip of the insemination gun into Maggie's cervix (something having to do with the boniness of Jerseys in general), but at last she succeeded. She did say that should Maggie's breeding not "take," she would come out and re-breed her without any additional cost.

Lucy: "What are you doing to my mom?

Stormy: "What are you doing to my mom?"

And that was that. Stormy was bred on the evening of Sept. 9, and Maggie on the morning of Sept. 10. Both should calve around June 15 of next year.

Despite the hassle of training Stormy and the cost of the breeding, we're very satisfied with the precision and specificity of artificial insemination, particularly since we no longer have the space, infrastructure, interest, or need to keep a bull.

Maggie's calves will be sold as milkers as they get older, and Stormy's calves will go in the freezer when the time comes. In this manner, we will be set for dairy and beef for the foreseeable future.

Stormy's growth

Some readers have asked how our little calf Stormy is doing. She's growing! The photograph below shows her drinking her breakfast moments after I finished milking Maggie and released Stormy from the calf pen.

Honestly, I've never a calf this leggy. She's nearly as tall as Romeo, who is three months older. Romeo is, of course, much beefier, since he's not only older, but a half-Angus, half-Dexter steer.

Stormy and Romeo are good friends.

It seems Stormy might be polled, too, which is interesting. We've never raised a polled calf before. Saves us the trouble of dehorning her!

She's also very sweet and affectionate. Originally we were thinking we would sell her (a woman from our church is interested), but now we're thinking we'll keep her as a possible second milker when she's older. With her half-Angus heritage, her calves will be beefier and will work as meat animals (especially since the only bulls around here are pure Angus, so we can keep the meat lineage going). Meanwhile we'll phase out our pure Angus animals, since we prefer the Jersey strain. Filet has a date with the butcher in August, and next year it will be Mignon's turn, followed by Romeo the year after that. Meanwhile we might keep our eyes peeled for a second purebred Jersey sometime next year.

So that's the update on Stormy.

More on milking Maggie

In the last post on training Maggie to milk, a reader asked for more details on how I hobble her back leg to avoid getting kicked. This morning I took the camera with me to the barn and got some general pix of the milking process.

I have a permanent loop on the hobble rope. This way I can slip the rope through the loop, then around Maggie's leg. This means the hobble stays loose enough on her leg not to be uncomfortable, but if she pulls at it, it tightens.

I thread the other end of the rope through the eye-bolt on the post and make a slip knot. That way, if I have to release her leg quickly, I just yank the tail of the rope and the knot comes out.

It's normal for cows to shift position while in the milking stall. The slip makes it easy to readjust how "hobbled" Maggie is as the milking progresses. You don't want to make a hobble so short that the cow is immobilized, because she'll panic. It should only be short enough to keep her from kicking over the milk bucket, or kicking the milker (me!).

The very first thing to do before starting to milk (after hobbling, of course) is to wash the udder. For obvious reasons, this is very important. It's not always this bad, but this morning was a doozy.

I use two buckets for milking. I milk directly into the smaller one...

...and then, when I've accumulated an inch of milk or so of milk, I pour it into the larger bucket behind me.

This system serves two purposes. One, if the cow kicks the bucket over, I haven't lost all the milk. And two, the larger bucket is far enough away that if Maggie urinates, nothing splashes into the milk.

When I'm done milking, I cap the clean milk with a bowl cover before I release the animals.

Then it's time for Stormy to get her own breakfast. By the way, to forestall any questions, once-a-day milking means the cow adjusts her output for two "calves" (I'm the other "calf"), so Stormy is not deprived of any of the food or nutrients she needs.

After I come back to the house with the milk, I strain it through a double layer of thin cotton cloth and chill the milk. (I boil the cloth each day to sanitize it.) Then I scrub and sanitize the buckets and upend them to air-dry until the next day.

And that's all there is to it! Ta da!

Milking Maggie

This is a long post, so grab a cup of tea and follow our adventures as we train Maggie to be a milk cow.

Ever since little Stormy's unexpectedly early birth, Don has been slamming to build the calf pen and milking stall.

In the photo below, you can see the milking stall on the left, with the adjustable head-gate at the end. In the back-right is the calf pen, and in the front-right is the ... I dunno what to call it, the outer pen? ... where I'll sit on a crate and milk.

After this initial set-up was complete, we spent about a week training Maggie to come into the milking stall and put her head through the head-gate for grain. We also encouraged Stormy to go into the calf pen, but didn't close the gate. In other words, we just let the animals get used to things without pressure.

Here's Maggie's grain bucket in the little alcove on the other side of the head-gate.

Meanwhile, since we had removed the barn mats while building the infrastructure, we cut the mats to fit the new pens so Stormy wouldn't be on concrete while confined. We didn't put a mat in the milking stall, though, so it has a concrete floor for easier cleaning.

The one issue we hadn't resolved what what to do when Maggie urinated or defecated while in the milking stall. This may sound trivial or silly, but in fact it's a serious consideration for both sanitation (for the milk) and comfort (for me). In previous milking situations, we always had gravel or dirt floors, which meant most of the time it was no big deal. This is the first time I would be milking on concrete, and I knew things were likely to splash.

We tossed around a number of ideas: An elevated platform with a grate and a "litter box" underneath? A tub partly filled with sawdust placed right behind Maggie's legs?

Neither seemed ideal, but we couldn't think of anything else.

With that issue unresolved, the evening finally came when we planned to confine the calf for the first time so I could milk Maggie the following morning. I was a jittery bundle of nerves because first times are always stressful for bovines and humans alike.

At first we thought we would confine both the calf (to the pen) and Maggie (inside the barn) each night, similar to what we did just after Stormy was born and the weather was so rainy. After a great deal of effort, we got the calf in the pen...

...and Maggie in the barn with the doors shut.

To say this first attempt was a failure is to engage in the drollest understatement. Maggie had full access to the milking stall, and the calf desperately tried to climb through the head-gate of the stall to get to her mama. It was impossibly unsafe to leave them in the barn for the night. So, literally thirty seconds after everyone was confined, we released them again.

Back to Square One. Well, Square Two. Don got busy making extra security. He made a solid gate inside the calf pen to block off the little alcove where the grain bucket was (the little spot in the upper-left corner of the diagram below).

This gate could be closed and latched, so we still have access to the space but the calf doesn't.

Then he made a solid gate (on the left) to block off access to the milking stall. He also reinforced the strength of the outer pen gate (right).

Okay. Phew. A few days later, with all these reinforcements in place, we tried once again to tuck the calf away for the night, though this time we didn't try to confine Maggie to the barn.

We started the process, as usual, by giving Maggie her grain. (Notice the heavy-duty crossbeam separating the milking stall from the outer pen. That comes into the story later on.)

While Maggie was engaged with the grain, we were able to scoot Stormy into the calf pen. And then the fun began!

Maggie was mooing in distress at being separated from her calf. Mignon and Romeo came in to offer moral support.

It quickly became apparent that the milking stall gate was too low. Obviously the calf couldn't reach it, but Maggie was leaning over it, and I was afraid she would hurt herself trying to reach her baby. So I asked Don to hastily screw in a board blocking the upper portion for extra security.

I lingered in the barn for about half an hour, just to make sure nothing went amiss. Fortunately the increased security of the infrastructure held, and eventually everyone calmed down. The calf laid down in her pen and Maggie wandered off to graze. Once full darkness fell, there wasn't even very much bellowing from either Maggie or Stormy through the night.

Both Don and I were up verrrry early the next morning. He planned to assist me during the first couple days of milking. I deliberately didn't bring my camera since I knew I would be far too stressed and busy to take photos.

Armed with buckets, we went into the barn, got Maggie into the milking stall with some grain, and I sat down to milk.

Immediately we knew additional changes would have to be made. The hobble rope we used to secure Maggie's back leg to the post was insufficient, and she kicked it off with one attempt. (Hobbling a back leg is necessary to prevent the milker from being kicked in the head, either accidentally or deliberately. Ask me how I know.) We placed a tub with sawdust behind her in case she urinated, but she promptly kicked it away.

I started milking, and Maggie didn't know what to think of this. Remember, all this was absolutely new to her. She may have been feeling relief, as her udder was full; but she was restless and nervous, and I was overly cautious and tense.

At one point Maggie made a sudden move, and I jumped up from the milking crate and CRACKED my head against that crossbeam above me. I staggered around for a few moments in agony and had an impressive lump for a day or so. Whee, what fun!

Anyway, even with all the chaos, I managed to get three-quarters of a gallon of milk before calling it quits. We released Maggie, released the calf, and Don and I stumbled into the house where we collapsed in chairs, drinking the tea/coffee we hadn't had a chance to have earlier.

After we calmed down, we assessed what went right and what went wrong. We determined the reason I cracked my head was because I was underneath the crossbeam rather than on the other side of it; and the reason I was underneath it was because Maggie was too far over in the stall. In other words, the milking stall was too wide. We would have to insert a spacer to push her closer to me, so I could milk her without being directly under the crossbeam.

We reworked a number of issues. Don installed a permanent higher board across the milking-stall gate.

I got a stouter rope and used a simple slip-knot around Maggie's back leg.

The rope is slipped through an eye-bolt for security, although I use a quick-release knot just in case.

The whole urination/defecation thing was easy-peasy to solve. On the second morning of milking, Don spontaneously shoveled a small pile of sawdust behind Maggie's back feet ... and it worked! This is the same sawdust I had been using for months to sprinkle on the barn floor to absorb urine, after which it could be easily raked up and put on the compost pile. Why we tried to overly complicate this issue is anyone's guess.

Don came out with me on the second morning to assist if necessary, but since milking is my task, I asked him just to be on standby in case I needed help.

The second morning went 100% more smoothly. Maggie stayed calm. Stormy stayed calm. I was very careful not to crack my head on the crossbeam, especially since we hadn't yet installed a spacer to push her body closer to me. In fact, Don left halfway through the milking because I didn't need him for any assistance. I milked out 1.5 gallons, released Maggie's hobble tie, opened the head-gate, let Stormy out of her pen, and voilà. Absolutely night and day from the first challenging milking.

It should be noted that start-up chaos like this is perfectly normal, especially for a cow's first time. I knew both Maggie and Stormy would soon settle into a routine and learn what was expected of them.

And so it proved. I've been milking for several days now, getting about 1.5 gallons each day, and everything has gone so smoothly that Don doesn't need to accompany me to the barn.

We still had some improvements to make, however, notably installing a spacer in the milking stall. We had an oversized pallet that was the perfect size, so we secured it in place.

Because we felt the edge of the pallet was too sharp, Don trimmed and installed a piece of foam pipe insulation to the corner.

And, because there was a length of insulation left over, I slipped it over the crossbeam. Y'know, just in case.

The spacer worked. I'm able to milk much more comfortably without having to crouch my way under the crossbeam to reach Maggie's udder.

So that's been our adventures over the past couple of weeks. Maggie is now trained to milk, and we're starting to work with Stormy to lead-train her. Now I have to get back into dairy mode since we're swimming in milk.