19. Artificial Insemination

WARNING: This post contains images that could be viewed as explicit, involving hands and various orifices near a cows tail. 

Two things have belatedly arrived this week, the last calf and also the sun.

Here is a photo of me struggling to hold the final calf of the season.

He had plenty of beans, probably because he was saving up his energy about a month longer than he should have done in the womb. 

If one was to split the NZ dairy farming year into four, we have now finished the calving quarter, and are now into the breeding quarter. The aim of the game is to get as many of the cows in calf as quick as possible, and in as shorter period as possible. The name of the game is artificial insemination (AI) or artificial breeding as it is often referred to here. 

The cows are AI'd for six weeks and then a team of bulls is brought to the farm to 'sweep up' any that have not successfully been inseminated through AI. The six weeks allow a maximum of three cycles (21 day interval) but usually just the two. The bulls will hang around for a few months, I think into January. There will definitely be future blog posts about the big boys! 

As humans, we don't have the senses and instincts of a bull to judge when a cow is ovulating and most fertile or 'on heat'. There is not a large window of time to get it right and deposit the bull juice into the cow at the point of optimum fertility. The way we notice a cow is on heat, is largely by the behavioral change, known as bulling. The most obvious signal is when a cow is ridden by another and stands to be mounted, a kind of false mating. 

I have carried my camera around for a few days and with 15 to 20 cows on heat per day, you would have thought I could have got a decent picture. But I always seem to have my hands full or I am too slow with the camera. This picture is all I managed to get, and quite frankly I am disappointed with myself. 

I borrowed this image from the internet to properly illustrate what I am describing. 

All the cows have a thick stripe of paint applied to the top of their tail which allows us to check to see if they have been ridden, like the fat cartoon cows above. 

This picture shows what the tail paint looks like before bulling. Different colours apply to different groups, such as early/late calvers or cows that have already been served. 

After a cow has stood to be mounted, the tail paint is rubbed off and is quite obvious when checked during morning milking.

Cows showing signs of bulling are drafted out to be served that morning. 

Artificial insemination is done by placing semen in the uterus of the cow by means of a long syringe like instrument that I call a gun, but probably has another proper name. Here is one used this morning. 

This is inserted into the vaginal tract and guided through the cervix with ones hand, which is in the rectum. The semen is deposited in the uterus, and should when correctly done, facilitate the fusion of sperm and egg. 

Our AI here is done through a company called LIC (Livestock Improvement Corporation) who send out an AI technician every day for the breeding period. Ours is Marlene, who arrives after breakfast and serves the cows at a ridiculous pace. 

Here she is on a mission, with Dan holding the ready loaded guns. 

As I am also qualified (in the UK), any future employers reading take note, I will be AI'ing a couple in a few weeks. They will have to be cows that are cycling having been served once already to protect the reputation of LIC, and Marlene. Hopefully my accuracy will be good, the reputation of a nation rests on my shoulders, and in my gloved, lubed hand. 

To completely change the subject, THE SUN HAS ARRIVED! It is getting pretty warm and I am going to buy a cowboy hat and some factor 50 this weekend because I burn like a slice of toast. I have got some proper NZ farmer tan lines, which differ from the conventional British ones. As well as the forearms and the V on the neck there is the thigh lines, developed by extensive wearing of very short rugby shorts. 

With the sun, has come a rise in soil temperature, and a subsequent rise in grass growth. To call it a growth boom would be exaggeration, but we are feeding out a lot less silage now. 

That is a size 11 welly there, and after a 24 day round, the grass is looking good. 

The grass is not only growing in the paddocks, but also on our lawn. Halfway through cutting it I thought we should really have silaged it, there was enough there. 

That is all for today, any questions about AI, don't hesitate to ask. I'll leave you with a picture I rather like, of the cows having had their first meal of the day enjoying a sit down, and a drink.

For those of you interested in sport, nutrition and keeping healthy, check out my friend's blog: http://foodfitnessandsport.blogspot.co.uk/