How hard is it to tell when a cow is in season (A.I. questions too)?

Question

I have a lot of livestock/farming experience, but little hands on with the cattle.

How hard is it to tell when a cow is in season. With the dairy cattle, they are busy mounting each other, so easy to tell.

What if you only have a beefer and her calf. Also quiet possibly not your "normal" beef breeds, but a heritage breed, like a West Highland, or something along those lines.

How difficult is it to A.I. a cow? Do you have to use a squeeze shute to A.I. a cow?

We want to raise some beef for ourselves after we move, but it doesn't make financial sence to also keep a bull.

Thank you for any information.

Answer 1

when its time the Volvo , will swell up, a bull can sense that, that when action takes place. A1, this stuff has to frozen at all times, Dry ice. Then when you adminstor you need a 3 foot long plastic glove. When injecting the s***n you will have to find 3 entries, then release the s***n. Neighbours have a bull. Check it out, unless you have someone that can provide this. Lot of milk farmers do this for better stock

Answer 2

Heat detection in cows is not so different from goats. The cow will act restless, the day before, often balling and blabbering a particular repetitious call that has an urgent quality to the sound of it, and a very rhythmic cadence, like: woooh... woooh... woooh, and then another set...cows will call a bull....  The v***a will swell as others mentioned, and often gets that "pinky flushed look" kind of like a goat, the juices will be "slippery". If you have more than one, cows will mount one another just like goats, and if you have them in with your goats, will sometimes even try to mount the goat (at least mine do). You usually have to confine the cow to inseminate them...but that can be done without a squeeze, say in a... chute. After the cow goes out of heat sometimes you'll see a bloody discharge on their tail, if you see that you know you missed it but you can mark it on your calender and start checking for heat signs in your cow about 18 days later, most cows have a 21 day cycle, but there are differences between one cow and another some are 23 some are 20 and so forth. Another way to inseminate is to bring them into heat artificially with lutalize or lutelise (not sure of spelling) is a one time shot deal, the cow comes in heat a few days latter, and then there is a implant that you put in the ear for so many days and take out in so many days, then the cow comes in heat. It works but you got to catch the cow, and do stuff to them they don't like much, puts a strain on the relationship, but not a big one.

But... all that said and done, if you want to raise beef, why don't you buy or trade for a good looking feeder calf or two, weaned and ready for pasture? Then you don't have to maintain anything through winter. There are definite advantages to that over maintaining a cow/calf situation. You have less animals to feed, YOU get to pick the quality of the beef animal you are going to raise... where as in breeding you HOPE you get a good calf and that it lives; another thing you do is help out the rancher who is in the business of maintaining a cow/calf operation... and you don't have to figure out how to get the cow re-bred and etc. But if you are wanting to go into raising the West Highlands or a peticular breed...well that is another question isn't it?

Answer 3

the v***a will swell and the bull or a steer will smell the pheromones. You can stick 2 fingers between her labia and , if the juices come off sticky, she is hot.. For rare or older breeds, you will have talk to your local vet about what is available.  It doesnt have to be in  a squeeze chute but it should be

Answer 4

The cows that were in heat in our herd would call for a "man" walking the fence and pacing.  Some will do this when they have hormonal problems too...and the vets look at the ovaries with the ultrasound units to determine if they have a retained corpus lutetium (sp maybe) in which shots may or may not work to break that loose.  If the shots don't work then she is off to the sale because they sure aren't breed-able if they won't ovulate.

I don't know about the heritage breeds but we gave the cows a shot,  pg600 I think, put the things "seeds" in the v***a the AI guy told us to put in, took them out when he said, and gave them another shot of something lutalyze I think or another and then he came out on the specified date and AI'd them.    The shots and the seeds would synchronize everyone in the heats and they could all be bred at the same time.

We had a 50% conception rate.  Not very good and some were even bred twice.

We did the AI stuff for two years in a row and still had a 50% conception rate.  The 3rd year we bought a bull and for the last 2 years we have had a 100% conception rate. Even though all of the cows were bred before the discharge turned pink we still didn't have a very good conception rate.  

And the AI produced a higher number 75% of bull calves.  Natural service has brought 60% heifer calves and 40% bull calves.  The number of cows has been 20 every year.

There are heat detectors that eNasco sells for cattle.  It might be worth it to invest in one of those.  When the cows were AI'd they usually just stood in the alley way and we wouldn't even run them thru the chutes.  

On the dairy's the cows being bred are fed their ration of feed and the stantions are locked and the AI guy just walks up and down them and determines which, who, what, where and when, the other guy enters the cow's numbers into the handheld herd data pilot and so the records were kept.  The PG ones were marked as to how many months they were and unlocked and moved to different pens. They also had a hip locker for the kicky ones.  You haven't had any cows that kick though have you?...lolll....hope this helps with your decision to get a bull or not.  You could even collect him and sell s***n to the AI guy....

Answer 5

Around here there are a couple of A.I. services, they come around and inseminate for a nominal fee.  You can also sometimes borrow a bull, or even bring your cow over to another person's place when she is ready to be bred and let run with their bull for a while to get knocked up.

The signs for dairy and beef breeds are pretty much the same, though.  Our 3 whiteface herefords are reaching their first heats, and the oldest had a swollen vuvla and slight bloody discharge, so that can be a sign.  We are waiting for late summer/early fall in order to ensure spring calving.

Answer 6

On the day of ovulation, body temperature drops a full degree, usually for about 14 hours.  This is the marker that gives highest reliability, but you can miss taking temperature within the window, so very easily.

If you happen to be walking behind a cow, and put your hand on the top of her tail bone, when not in heat most cows will scurry off, while in heat the cow is likely to come to an abrupt stop.

Noticing this can be difficult too.

Borrowing another cow to spend time with her, so that you will spot the mounting behavior seems to be the  most reliable way to catch this event.

Answer 7

If it is your choice to raise a small number of beef animals and their purpose is for freezer meat, it may be much simpler for you to buy the calves that you need.

If you are wanting to breed animals for the purpose of resale of particular breeds and/or genetics the use of artificial insemination offers you the type of genetics that will work for your breeding program.

As you mentioned that you are unfamiliar with the AI process, get to know a local farmer, who if they are a dairy farmer will have "hands on" practice on a frequent basis and they may be able to help you to have the females bred correctly: placement of s***n just past the cervix into the uterus and on the correct time.  Time in the respect that you or the breeder inseminate the animal at a period that is 12 hours after the onset of the heat cycle.  With muliple animals in your herd, this would be 8-12 hours after the animal is in standing heat (stands to be mounted by another animal).

Anyone with a certain amount of practice can perform the task of breeding an animal with properly thawed s***n.  Beef breeders who use AI once a year, can find it challenging to pass the pipette through the cervix for the placement of the s***n.  This is where that dairy man can be helpful is available.

There are several options available for bringing an animal into heat through the use of a prostaglandin ie. Lutalyse or Estrumate.  This will only work if there is a corpus luteum on the ovary.  A two shot approach will help to bring the animal into heat more predictably.  There are other options such as using an Ov-Sync program which consists of GnRH, CIDR's and Lutalyse.  Consult a large animal vet with experience in these protocols.

The use of a chute is very helpful to contain an animal when working with them.  Even cows in heat can be challenging to work with if not properly contained.                Good luck.