Post by ladygrey on Jul 17, 2024 13:23:44 GMT -5
Backstory (which many of you have seen): I've been trying to get my cow bred since February. After weeks spent trying to line up cryo tanks, bull semen, and suchlike, I gave up because the techs quit answering their phone and it was getting complicated. In April we rented a bull. The bull did not breed her but nursed from her and gave her mastitis. She has had two more bouts since then because she is a stubborn cow and if something changes in her routine she has to be retrained to come in for milking and in the meantime gets an overfull bag and mastitis (fyi it was klebsiella, which is easy to treat but does recur because it lives in soil and bedding). In late June we brought in another bull. We all saw him mount her many times so we thought the deed was done. But today, 25 days later right on schedule, she's doing that dreaded in-heat bellow again. My husband is fed up - so am I, she's cost us a fortune in bulls and vet bills for no pregnancy - and also too busy with work to deal with this any more any time soon. So I'm not sure what to do. We can:
1) Try AI. But if a bull didn't work, I don't know that AI would have much chance. Also we need a head gate installed because she won't hold still for medical procedures and my husband, again, is too busy to want to add another project.
2) Dry her off and send her somewhere to live with a bull for like three months. This would mean a year with no milk but whatever.
3) Just keep milking her until she dries off naturally, then beef her and get another cow.
4) Sell her soon while she's still in milk and worth something, and get another cow when we're ready.
If it was you, what would you do? How much time, money, and effort do you put into a cow before you cut your losses and try again with a different cow?
And is there ANY chance this is a false heat? She really doesn't show any signs of heat (mucus, blood etc) except the bellowing and holding her tail out as a general rule so there's no differentiating factor. I'll probably preg test her in a couple weeks just in case but I'm not optimistic. (Do you have to send it to a lab or is there a home test?)
1) Try AI. But if a bull didn't work, I don't know that AI would have much chance. Also we need a head gate installed because she won't hold still for medical procedures and my husband, again, is too busy to want to add another project.
2) Dry her off and send her somewhere to live with a bull for like three months. This would mean a year with no milk but whatever.
3) Just keep milking her until she dries off naturally, then beef her and get another cow.
4) Sell her soon while she's still in milk and worth something, and get another cow when we're ready.
If it was you, what would you do? How much time, money, and effort do you put into a cow before you cut your losses and try again with a different cow?
And is there ANY chance this is a false heat? She really doesn't show any signs of heat (mucus, blood etc) except the bellowing and holding her tail out as a general rule so there's no differentiating factor. I'll probably preg test her in a couple weeks just in case but I'm not optimistic. (Do you have to send it to a lab or is there a home test?)