Hoping Rory Is Bred (Artificial Insemination)

This has been a pretty exciting week and a half. I decided to breed Rory, our 2+ year old heifer - Raisa's daughter. We're giving Raisa some time off. I think we're going to let her retire and let Rory take over the milk-making responsibilities. Raisa was always bred by bulls, but I didn't want to borrow someone's bull or buy one, so we decided to give artificial insemination (AI) a try. I was told it's only 30 to 50% effective, but I wanted to give it a shot anyway. If it doesn't take, we'll probably buy a baby bull and raise him for breeding in another year and a half. AI is a process if you don't know when your heifer is going to come into heat. A week and a half ago we had the vet out to give the dogs their shots, check on one of the goat's ailments and deliver the materials I needed to get Rory pregnant. A week ago, Tuesday, I gave her her first shot and inserted an apparatus with progesterone on it to prevent her from coming into heat. Inserting the CIDR (controlled internal drug release) was simple, but she wasn't happy about the shot. She was a real trouper about letting me insert the CIDR. She moved very little. This is what it looks like.

A week later I had to give her a shot of Lutalyse, which brings a cow into heat, and remove the CIDR. Today the vet came out to do the insemination. I had been stressing out about it. I'd watched some Youtube videos to see how AI was done and was worried Rory wouldn't stand for it. I was so wrong. She behaved beautifully. Actually, all the animals did. When I rounded up Rory all the other animals followed me to the barn. Adam bribed them with food and that left just Raisa and Rory at the barn gate. Rory walked in without any coaxing and Raisa stayed out of the way. I tied her up and put a board behind her so she wouldn't back out of the stall. I probably didn't even need to do this because she never tried to get out. The whole process went so quickly. The vet was only here 25 minutes, and that included the time he spent in his truck getting the supplies he needed and thawing the semen. This is a Youtube video about how AI works. I found it fascinating. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6fYyxs_lDE Click on the above link and it will help you understand what's going on in this video below of Rory being inseminated. My video just shows how well she behaved while the vet did his thing. I barely got into the stall and the vet had already begun the process. Rory continiued to eat and seemed to ignore the hand in her rectum. In another month to month and a half I can have the vet out to ultra-sound or palpate Rory to see if the AI took and she's pregnant. It will be so disappointing if she's not. We used Jersery semen instead of Dexter because our vet keeps it on hand and because a jersey baby will be a similar size to my dexters. My dexters are on the large size. The semen came from a bull named Valentino. I looked him up online to see what he looked like.

Stay tuned. Hopefully in 9 months I'll be posting a photo of an adorable calf.