Our cow is old enough now to be bred. Since we don't have another cow we have to go through some alternative methods to determine when she is in heat. Jim has set himself a schedule of checking Sandy four times a day: 5:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m., 5:00 p.m., and 11:00 p.m. I'm glad it's him and not me doing the checking, since it has been very cold, snowy and windy out there.
Last night both of us stayed up rather late, and Jim asked me for the clock I keep by my side of the bed. The battery had quit, so I replaced it with a rechargeable one I found in the charger. Jim decided to sleep on the couch since he had to be up early and didn't want to wake the rest of us.
It wasn't more than an hour later that I heard Jim go outside and soon come back in and add wood to the wood stove. I thought he must have forgotten to let our dog Samson back in, since I heard him barking outside. I got up, let the dog in (Samson has gotten spoiled lately), and checked the wood stove. I thought it rather strange that I had heard Jim do the same thing not too long before, and yet there was room to add a few logs.
Morning came, and I didn't remember hearing Jim get up at 5:00 to check the cow. Jim's first comment was that he had been so tired when the alarm went off that he had great trouble getting up and going outside to the barn. I asked him what he was doing at 1:00 when I heard him go outside; he said he didn't go out until 5:00. I told him no, it had been 1:00. We checked the alarm clock, and discovered it had not been set to the correct time but when the battery was replaced it was left where the hands had stopped! Jim said he had left Samson out because he thought someone would soon be up to let him back in, and he hadn't completely filled the wood stove since he figured everyone would be up shortly and it would be taken care of then.
We all had a good laugh, and decided we'd better pay closer attention to details or the cow may never get bred.
2 comments:
I hate trying to find heat cycles in animals. Our one heifer used to yell her head off when she was in heat. Then when she got old enough to breed, she got quiet. She is back to being a bit vocal, but we had to have her AI'd a second time this time. I hope the second time took.
Hi Marci,
I hope we do okay with this, since it's our first time looking for signs. It was the same with Sandy when we first got her -- she would beller like crazy! Not so much any more. I would sure hate to have to do this AI thing more than once, as we have to depend on a farmer south of town to come up and do the procedure.
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