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Jul 30, 2011 8:32 AM CST
Thread OP
Name: Kathleen Tenpas
Wickwire Corners NY (Zone 5a)
Charter ATP Member I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! The WITWIT Badge Raises cows Farmer Region: New York
Garden Ideas: Level 2
Gorgeous day, not much of the last two days predicted rain hit here, but it seems to be either feast or famine this year, so I won't complain too much. Porkpal, did any of t.s. Don's rain get to you? It looked like it fizzled way too fast.

Stan's off moving animals around - heifers, dry cows, trying to catch some of the not supposed to be open heifers in heat. It has been a bit of a trying summer with the breeding program. We've got two inseminators courting us and neither seems to be having the best of luck here. Well, we need to put one of them in the freezer, so I guess he'll be making that decision soon.

I woke up yesterday with a miserable backache and trying to walk around that has made my knees have a screaming hissy. I guess I'll just take it easy today and tomorrow and see if it all eases off.
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Jul 30, 2011 8:54 AM CST
Name: Jacquie (JB) Berger
Wrightstown, New Jersey (Zone 6b)

Charter ATP Member I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! Region: United States of America Region: New Jersey Houseplants Container Gardener
Farmer Keeps Horses Dog Lover Birds The WITWIT Badge Plays in the sandbox
Kathleen, you may be dehydrated.........I went to the chiropractor yesterday for my weekly adjustment and he told me the pain in my legs and back could be dehydration.

I spent a few years on a Standardbred breeding farm, we had our stallions and we collected and inseminated there daily. When you say you have two inseminators courting us, what did you mean? Do you have the semen? We had to keep ours if we shipped frozen in dry ice containers. I am just curious because so many new things are now used in breeding bovine and equine I have a hard time keeping up with it. Not that I need to anymore. Blinking I am just curious at this age. Hilarious!

We had a Mexican American working on the farm as Manager and he brought some very expensive (so he said) blue ribbon steer semen with him and he treasured that semen like it was gold. He kept checking the container to be sure it was still the correct temps. etc. and one day he came in the office raging and screaming I thought a stallion hurt him or something, it was nothing except something went wrong with his container that held the semen and the temperature went down and the semen went bad. I felt sorry for him, but he was always fussing about that stupid semen and none of really thought there was anything in the container. He was so big feeling we thought he was just bluffing. Just an old memory.
Thanks for listening. Rolling on the floor laughing
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Jul 30, 2011 9:14 AM CST
Thread OP
Name: Kathleen Tenpas
Wickwire Corners NY (Zone 5a)
Charter ATP Member I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! The WITWIT Badge Raises cows Farmer Region: New York
Garden Ideas: Level 2
lol, I can understand that he must have felt he was looking for the right cow, but you need to use the stuff, or it just doesn't work!

The inseminator that we had "retired" and sold his Select Sire route to another guy, who was subsequently let go by Select Sire. The guy who had retired picked his route back up and the guy he had sold it to went with Semex, so now Stan has been calling both of them, about every other time. He's getting a little fed up with open heifers and second and third breedings on cows, so I guess he'll have to sit down and figure out which way to go. We buy the semen from the inseminator as we use it. One time, I think we bought some and had it stored for us, but that was a special case when we were working on breeding red holsteins before the semen became readily available.

When I was a kid, I was my grandfather's right hand girl in figuring out which bull to use when we were breeding cows. He was an early proponent of artificial insemination and one of the people instrumental in bringing it to this area, so our cows have a nearly 70 year history of breeding behind our herd.

Our granddaughter went to the county fair yesterday for the Dairy Judging Competition. She came in 2nd in the FFA individual judging and 4th in the overall judging for individuals and her team came in 3rd. The Extension Agent who's in charge of the 4H Dairy Team recruited her nstantly and told her that she has a natural ability. This is her second competition, so she is doing pretty well, but then, she does have a bit of family history.

Last edited by Kathleen Jul 30, 2011 11:11 AM Icon for preview
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Jul 30, 2011 10:18 AM CST
Name: Porkpal
Richmond, TX (Zone 9a)
Cat Lover Charter ATP Member Keeper of Poultry I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! Dog Lover Keeps Horses
Roses Plant Identifier Farmer Raises cows Celebrating Gardening: 2015 Garden Ideas: Level 2
It's great that the interest in dairy farming is staying in your family. I wish I could have taken over my uncle's farm, but my cousin sold the cows and now the land is being depleted as it is a sod farm. His daughter is gradually converting it for strawberries, but the cows will never be back.

The great storm "Don" rained mainly into the Rio Grande, I think. I'm sure whoever got rain from it was grateful, but no one got much. We got a brief downpour early this morning from somewhere - not Don - almost 1/8"! Amazingly things actually look greener.
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Jul 30, 2011 4:26 PM CST
Name: Jacquie (JB) Berger
Wrightstown, New Jersey (Zone 6b)

Charter ATP Member I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! Region: United States of America Region: New Jersey Houseplants Container Gardener
Farmer Keeps Horses Dog Lover Birds The WITWIT Badge Plays in the sandbox
God Bless that granddaughter of yours. She is nothing better than animals for these kids when they are growing up. I put my daughter on a horse when she was three. She is now the Equine Specialist for the State of New Jersey. We will not discuss my son. He was allergic to horses so he played tennis and now he is a Criminal Trial Attorney. Rolling on the floor laughing He would have been a lot happier in the country I am sure!!!!

I never bred cows. I have been around them and milked etc. but I was too young and not able to hang around them during school. Horses were my thing. How long do you have to catch the heifer when she comes in? It must be difficult scheduling the inseminator? Very interesting.

When I first went to the breeding farm we did not have enough guys to help inseminate. So I learned from the very beginning and helped do it all. I was hired as office manager but they knew my horse background and took advantage of it.

The mare of course in the standardbred breedings never even sees the stallion. He is teased with another mare used for that purpose only. (a cheap mare. the mares being AI'd are so expensive they could get hurt and that is a no no). When the stallion is ready to ejaculate he is washed and cleaned and put on a "phantom mare" made out of leather and wood, he mounts her, we collect the semen in a leather sleeve just the temperature of a vagina of a mare, and he completes his task and we immediately take the sleeve with the semen into the completely sterile lab and check it for a sperm count and prepare it for the mares we are going to use it on. When that is all done, the house vet does the AI. In addition, the semen is also used for people who bring their mares to the farm to be bred and we used to ship some. That is why we did the sperm count to see how many mares we could get out of one collection. Unfortunately the horse breeding business in NJ is going down the drain due to the lack of money the State has. It could mean that the farm I worked at, which is the biggest, will no doubt close. I just spoke to the Marketing Director of the farm today about the future of the horse industry and he told me things were very serious.
We have very few dairy farms here anymore. Just heartbreaking.

I hope I did not bore you with the above, since I think most people have no idea the time, effort and money that goes into breeding these wonderful animals. Cows included. Correct timing and scheduling is so important that most people never think about the costs etc. It is no wonder the small farmers are all going into other farming or giving up all together.

Just one more thing of no interest to anyone but a farmer. I taught my daughter the facts of life by taking her to watch a cow drop a calf. More memories. Lovey dubby Lovey dubby Lovey dubby
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Jul 30, 2011 8:12 PM CST
Name: Anna Z.
Monroe, WI
Charter ATP Member Greenhouse Cat Lover Raises cows Region: Wisconsin
Kathleen, this remark was just too funny............



We've got two inseminators courting us and neither seems to be having the best of luck here. Well, we need to put one of them in the freezer, so I guess he'll be making that decision soon.


Do each of the inseminators know that one of them is destined for the freezer???? LOLOL
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Jul 30, 2011 10:39 PM CST
Name: Porkpal
Richmond, TX (Zone 9a)
Cat Lover Charter ATP Member Keeper of Poultry I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! Dog Lover Keeps Horses
Roses Plant Identifier Farmer Raises cows Celebrating Gardening: 2015 Garden Ideas: Level 2
I liked that ultimatum too. Perhaps they will be motivated to do better work in the future.
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Jul 31, 2011 5:33 AM CST
Thread OP
Name: Kathleen Tenpas
Wickwire Corners NY (Zone 5a)
Charter ATP Member I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! The WITWIT Badge Raises cows Farmer Region: New York
Garden Ideas: Level 2
LOLOLOL boy, did I NOT catch that one! Actually, it's a heifer that's bound for the freezer, but then you all knew that, although there have been days when what was supposed to be a morning service ended up being a late afternoon service that I'm not sure but what Stan would have like to have put one of the guys in the freezer. It's always the same one, so I think a decision will be made soon. In my defense, I've been on pain meds, so things are a little looney here. I'm making an appointment to see my doc tomorrow if this hasn't eased up. The pain is so bad this time that the muscles in my left leg are jumping. Ah, the joys of arthritis, etc.

JB, appointments are made daily. Both services have an answering machine and Stan calls in early morning for before noon breeding and lunchtime or so for afternoon. Usually it's a 12 hour window, but the sooner the better. Anna, feel free to call me on this if you did it differently. We use heat detectors on the heifers out in the pasture. They are applied to the heifer just above the tail and if another heifer rides her, as they will, the Kamar turns red - it's a chemical reaction released when the detector is bumped. When we first started farming we visited what was then New York Artificial Breeders Cooperative. They had some fake French (made in France) cows - wood and cowhide that they dowsed with the appropriate pheromones when they wanted a bull to produce. I must say that sitting in one of those things to do the collection didn't look like a job I would ever want.
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Jul 31, 2011 6:47 AM CST
Name: Anna Z.
Monroe, WI
Charter ATP Member Greenhouse Cat Lover Raises cows Region: Wisconsin
For times I called the breeder, the call had to be in before noon for an afternoon service, and before 8 am for a morning service, tho I know they checked their answering service for calls after those times.
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Jul 31, 2011 7:08 AM CST
Name: Porkpal
Richmond, TX (Zone 9a)
Cat Lover Charter ATP Member Keeper of Poultry I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! Dog Lover Keeps Horses
Roses Plant Identifier Farmer Raises cows Celebrating Gardening: 2015 Garden Ideas: Level 2
Even unreliable inseminators have got to be better than maintaining a bull. I am lucky to have a neighbor who does his own herd's A-I - and mine.
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Jul 31, 2011 8:01 AM CST
Name: Mary
The dry side of Oregon
Be yourself, you can be no one else
Charter ATP Member Farmer Region: Oregon Enjoys or suffers cold winters
A dairy farmer friend of ours learned the proceedure so he didn't have to rely on a service call, and soon he was going to neighboring farms as well. And when I was raising a few mules, the owners of the jack did A I on my mares. They didn't want to risk injury to their prize winning jack, and they also had a lot more mares than he could handle. At least one owner of Tennessee Walking Horses brought mares there to produce gaited mules.
Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most.
More ramblings at http://thegatheringplacehome.m...
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Jul 31, 2011 8:50 AM CST
Name: Porkpal
Richmond, TX (Zone 9a)
Cat Lover Charter ATP Member Keeper of Poultry I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! Dog Lover Keeps Horses
Roses Plant Identifier Farmer Raises cows Celebrating Gardening: 2015 Garden Ideas: Level 2
I saw a gaited mule foal circling his dam once when I went horse shopping with a friend. We had a hard time staying on task. I don't think I have ever seen anything cuter!
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Jul 31, 2011 9:57 AM CST
Name: Jacquie (JB) Berger
Wrightstown, New Jersey (Zone 6b)

Charter ATP Member I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! Region: United States of America Region: New Jersey Houseplants Container Gardener
Farmer Keeps Horses Dog Lover Birds The WITWIT Badge Plays in the sandbox
OMG, I never heard of a gaited mule. How interesting. Help me remember here.

A Jack and a horse produce a mule. Correct? Does the mule have a gender? Mules can not reproduce correct?


Donkeys are Jacks and Jennys? Is that correct? Years ago we had a pair of grey donkeys. The male was too short to reach the female. He used to really get frustrated and it was really too difficult to keep trying to help him breed her. You can imagine, we never had babies and we finally sold them to a man with a whole herd and hopefully they found a small female for that poor frustrated male donkey. *Blush*
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Jul 31, 2011 10:57 AM CST
Name: Porkpal
Richmond, TX (Zone 9a)
Cat Lover Charter ATP Member Keeper of Poultry I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! Dog Lover Keeps Horses
Roses Plant Identifier Farmer Raises cows Celebrating Gardening: 2015 Garden Ideas: Level 2
Mules do come in male and female even though sterile. It is usual to geld the males as they will otherwise act like stallions/jackasses - undesirable!
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Jul 31, 2011 12:34 PM CST
Name: Jacquie (JB) Berger
Wrightstown, New Jersey (Zone 6b)

Charter ATP Member I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! Region: United States of America Region: New Jersey Houseplants Container Gardener
Farmer Keeps Horses Dog Lover Birds The WITWIT Badge Plays in the sandbox
I do not know why I always thought the male mules were born gelded, if you know what I mean?
They have to be gelded like a horse but they are sterile. Interesting. All these years I never ask that question. I learned to ride mules as a kid on the farm during harvest time or to go bring the cows in to milk but I never questioned their gender. Smiling Thanks for that information.
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Jul 31, 2011 2:24 PM CST
Thread OP
Name: Kathleen Tenpas
Wickwire Corners NY (Zone 5a)
Charter ATP Member I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! The WITWIT Badge Raises cows Farmer Region: New York
Garden Ideas: Level 2
Stan's dad had a female workhorse and a male Shetland pony. Apparently someone challenged him on having such a small stallion and he arranged things so the two produced a foal using a barn bridge, I believe. The foal grew up to be a horse with attitude, especially when it came to adolescent boys. Cricket knew where all the low branches on the farm were. I really can't say as I blame him - Stan and his brother used to feed him tuna fish sandwiches, which he loved, and then follow it up with a peanut butter sandwich just to watch him try to get it off the roof of his mouth. I grew up on a horseless farm, my grandfather preferred tractors to horses, but we used to go over to the neighbor's and lounge on the backs of his team in the summer. They were like big, comfy couches.

I told Stan about my freezer comment and he had a good laugh. Unh huh.
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Aug 1, 2011 2:14 PM CST
Name: Jacquie (JB) Berger
Wrightstown, New Jersey (Zone 6b)

Charter ATP Member I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! Region: United States of America Region: New Jersey Houseplants Container Gardener
Farmer Keeps Horses Dog Lover Birds The WITWIT Badge Plays in the sandbox
Rolling on the floor laughing Group hug
Come Visit us and chat awhile at
https://www.facebook.com/JBsPl...


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Aug 7, 2011 8:31 PM CST
Name: Porkpal
Richmond, TX (Zone 9a)
Cat Lover Charter ATP Member Keeper of Poultry I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! Dog Lover Keeps Horses
Roses Plant Identifier Farmer Raises cows Celebrating Gardening: 2015 Garden Ideas: Level 2
Somehow despite the drought that seems to have reduced most insects' population, horn flies are flourishing this summer. I treated the herd this afternoon with a pour-on repellent with the exception of one shy steer who wanted no part of it even though feed was involved. He'll be sorry! He'll end up with everyone else's pests in addition to his own. An interesting observation is how few flies the cows with Brahma or Longhorn breeding have compared with the European breeds - one reason why most of our replacement heifers are Beefmasters.
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Aug 7, 2011 10:26 PM CST
Name: Anna Z.
Monroe, WI
Charter ATP Member Greenhouse Cat Lover Raises cows Region: Wisconsin
I should probably put some pour=on on the small heifers we have here........really helps with the fly situation, even inside the building. I use Synergized De-Lice.
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Aug 8, 2011 8:06 AM CST
Name: Porkpal
Richmond, TX (Zone 9a)
Cat Lover Charter ATP Member Keeper of Poultry I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! Dog Lover Keeps Horses
Roses Plant Identifier Farmer Raises cows Celebrating Gardening: 2015 Garden Ideas: Level 2
I use Cylence or Brute.

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