Drawing Blood

    Well, I am happy to say it was not mine this time.   Yesterday we drew blood from our 14 bred (or I hope bred) cows.  Now that we have them all AI'd it is time to check their status.  A long seasoned vetran out west would simply palpate them (stick his arm up there and feel for the egg.  I am not that seasoned yet and the inexperienced hand runs the risk of knocking off the egg.  Talk about going backward!   We could hire a large animal vet to come out, but then you are on their schedule and it is costly to get them here.  
    Instead we draw blood and send it to the lab.  for about $3/cow we get back a report that says bred or open.  Open means I missed and we have to breed her again.The blood is drawn from the tail vein.  It is the same as any of us going to the hospital for bloodwork.  We run them into a catch chute, lift their tail and take a vial of blood.  Then they are free to go.  It probably took us about 8 minutes per cow which is not bad.  We had to sort out the cows not being checked and there are always a couple who do not want to cooperate.
    We send the samples right through the mail and we should have the results on Thursday via email.  If all goes as planned the breeding season will be over and we will be set for a Sept./Oct.calving season.  We should be looking at a 4 week calving window which is great.  It is a stressful and busy time checking on the expecting mothers.  We used to run a bull with our cows and our calving season used to be from about April to September.  That was an entire summer.  We have now gone to the AI where we can completely control the breeding season (not to mention use the best bulls in the industry every time) shortening our calving season and reducing stress.  Hopefully the report gives us good news for next fall!