Herd Health...

We had fun today. And it is called Herd Health. Our favorite vet, Kris, comes in every few months, to vaccinate, dehorn and preg check animals. Out of my animals all but three that were preg checked are indeed carrying babies. One who I was really hoping would be pregnant but wasn't was my six year old Jersey, Heather. She is unfortunately open. Oh well, she was really lame and sick this summer, so I am not really too surprised. Not to mention, the bull she was serviced to doesn't seem too have all that great a conception rate. He only caught one of the cows he was bred to in one breeding. The second cow is a lower end milker that has never really done very well. And the third one is old Star. She is coming up on twelve, so she can be cut some slack. On the upside, Mandy, Junie, Foolish, Lakota and Hattie are safe in calf. So are a whole slew of my parents animals. And Alan's cow, Bayberry, is indeed pregnant...to a bull that was big time FIFTY years ago. Talk about being able to really store semen. Figures that she would catch to him after being serviced about a half a dozen times.

I have a new nickname... and it is 'bull roper', guess it is better than some of the others that have been thought up over the years. It's a long story, but suffice to say that my dad's coming yearling bull, Frank, had to be dehorned. This meant that he and my bull Heath had to be caught. Heath wasn't a problem. He is way overly friendly for a bull. Frank was another story. He had pretty big horns, and a "Hmm, can I get you with these?" attitude. After the follow around the pen trying to convince him I wasn't so bad complete with a nice big scoop of grain, and getting the halter over his head only to have him pull it off with his feet, I got a bit, um, not so happy. SO, I employed the, 'I am getting pissed off at this animal but I don't want to upset him any more than I have to' method. This involved the lariat that we keep for pulling cows feet up when we need to hoof trim them. Anyways, I threaded the end through, and roped mister big bad bull. And I do mean roped. Then mom and I snubbed him up good and tight and got a halter on him and I pulled him out into a stall. Hence my new nickname. I think I might actually like it.