Post by april on Apr 15, 2010 21:33:11 GMT -5
I think I give up trying to figure out what's going on with the cows. I have 18 goat kids on the ground. For all of them I was able to see heat in the does, get them bred and predict their kidding dates within a day. The cows....are beyond my ken.
I was all ready to take Buttercup to the sale barn, but now I'm not sure that she's not pregnant. She went into heat consistently and highly predictably until about March of LAST year, after which I didn't see heat and thought she might be pregnant. December came and went, with no sign of pregnancy, so I figured she was cystic. Then around February of this year she had a bit of blood on her vulva, after which I saw heat again. I saw our young bull mount her and she stood for him in March. In the interest of full disclosure, we were standing there at the fence line petting her, so her standing for him may not have meant anything. Right around the time the next heat (after the mounting) would have been, she did have mucous - a long string of it. I figured that was heat and decided that two years of attempting to get her pregnant was enough, and that I'd send her off to the sale.
I went out to the pasture earlier this evening and.... she's streaming milk from one quarter every time she takes a step. *boggle*
I'm going to draw some blood and send it off to biotracking for a pregnancy check, but could you all take a look at these pictures and tell me what you think?
Here's her udder in November of last year.
Here's her udder tonight. Pardon the poor quality of the photograph, it was starting to get dark.
The udder size looks about the same, but the teats look very different to me. I don't know if that means anything.
Here's a shot of her from behind. She just doesn't look like the pregnant cow photos you all have posted.
(Pardon my husband's dirty shirt - we've been trying to teach newborn goat babies to take a bottle)
While we were out in the field with the cows I realized that the heifer's udder is looking different. She's making an udder, isn't she?
Do heifers make udders if they aren't pregnant? Should I draw blood on her too? She's a wild thing, I'm not sure I can restrain her for a tail bleed.
It would be really really cool if the cows were pregnant (that's not EVEN enough really's to show how cool that would be), but I would hate to get my hopes up again for nothing.
Thanks, folks!
-April
I was all ready to take Buttercup to the sale barn, but now I'm not sure that she's not pregnant. She went into heat consistently and highly predictably until about March of LAST year, after which I didn't see heat and thought she might be pregnant. December came and went, with no sign of pregnancy, so I figured she was cystic. Then around February of this year she had a bit of blood on her vulva, after which I saw heat again. I saw our young bull mount her and she stood for him in March. In the interest of full disclosure, we were standing there at the fence line petting her, so her standing for him may not have meant anything. Right around the time the next heat (after the mounting) would have been, she did have mucous - a long string of it. I figured that was heat and decided that two years of attempting to get her pregnant was enough, and that I'd send her off to the sale.
I went out to the pasture earlier this evening and.... she's streaming milk from one quarter every time she takes a step. *boggle*
I'm going to draw some blood and send it off to biotracking for a pregnancy check, but could you all take a look at these pictures and tell me what you think?
Here's her udder in November of last year.
Here's her udder tonight. Pardon the poor quality of the photograph, it was starting to get dark.
The udder size looks about the same, but the teats look very different to me. I don't know if that means anything.
Here's a shot of her from behind. She just doesn't look like the pregnant cow photos you all have posted.
(Pardon my husband's dirty shirt - we've been trying to teach newborn goat babies to take a bottle)
While we were out in the field with the cows I realized that the heifer's udder is looking different. She's making an udder, isn't she?
Do heifers make udders if they aren't pregnant? Should I draw blood on her too? She's a wild thing, I'm not sure I can restrain her for a tail bleed.
It would be really really cool if the cows were pregnant (that's not EVEN enough really's to show how cool that would be), but I would hate to get my hopes up again for nothing.
Thanks, folks!
-April