This post contains rather graphic descriptions of A.I. cow breeding. Not for those with delicate sensebilities.
The artificial insemination of a cow seems like such a bizarre impossible idea to me. I wonder who originally thought it up. (Although, just recently I learned that people artificially inseminate honey bees ... so perhaps my ideas of what is improbable needs looked into). The breeder gets a frozen straw with a milliliter of frozen jizz in it out of a tank of liquid nitrogen. It is thawed and inserted into this long thin metal tube with a plunger at the end. Then, the breeder reaches into the rectum of the cow and, pressing against the large intestine, pushes down and grabs the cow's cervix. Next, he or she inserts the tube into the cows vagina, through her cervix, and into the spot right at the beginning of the uterus, where the breeder depresses the plunger and releases the semen.
After a rather horrifying but not permanently disabling incident with our bull, I decided that I should learn how to breed cows. Last year, my husband and I went to cow breeding school. After two days of classes and 3 or 4 practice runs at home, I decided that Peter was much better at it than I was. For one thing, a Holstein is big. Sometimes I would be on my tip toes armpit deep in cow ass and still not be able to reach the cervix. Also, my hands are small. If I could get a hold of the cervix, it would sometimes slip out of my hand. This is very frustrating when you have spent the last 12 minutes searching for this elusive little organ. After I had bred a cow my left arm was exhausted from fighting against the strong muscles of the cow's digestive tract. My arm would involuntary shake and twitch for an hour afterward and be sore the whole day.
Peter discovered that he is much better at this than I am. He's quicker (which is better for the semen and I imagine also for the cow although they don't really seem to mind as much as you might expect), taller, has longer arms, bigger hands and is stronger in general. The teachers at the course called him a natural and at the farm he has bred many cows that settled (got pregnant). I think there is some joke to be made here but I'm not sure what it is.
This is not to say that smaller people can't breed cows. A co-worker of mine told me that her mother was one of the first female inseminators to work in Massachusetts (This was about 40 years ago). I think that if I had a lot of practice, I could probably get the hang of it. But it's not on the top of my list of things to do right now. Fortunately, we live in a state that still has lots of dairy farms, so there are professional artificial inseminators who come to your farm to "service" (that is really what they call it) your cows. Once they are at the cow, it takes them about 45 seconds. (again ... a chance for a joke?) They must have the forearms of professional walnut crushers. It costs $8 for them to come to the farm and then between 10-30 dollars for the semen. Not totally romantic for the cow, but better than getting your ribs cracked, in my opinion.
I figured this would be a good thing to write about because this month I'm getting my heifers bred for the first time. Since the bull we have right now is the sire of these heifers, I had to do it AI. So this morning I called the inseminator and asked him to come tomorrow to breed Cricket to a jersey bull with high butterfat (That means his daughters have a better chance for producing milk with higher butter fat content). Much like royalty sitting around hoping the queen will conceive, I'll wait to see if she settles.
Okay, here's a cow breeding joke:
The farmer told her husband that the inseminator was coming that morning. She had to go do some errands, so she asked him to go to the barn with the inseminator to show him which cow needed to be bred. To help her husband remember which cow it was, the farmer stuck a nail in the board above the cow's stall. When the inseminator came, the farmer's husband went to the barn and led the inseminator right to the cow. The inseminator was getting ready and said, "what's the nail for?" And the husband said "I'd guess to hang your pants on."
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These are great, Ivy! I can see you on tip-toe fishing around in there. Mom ( I think Jane is Jane Doe)
ReplyDeletedid you make that joke up?
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