Trying to Get Pregnant II

After one week of hormone treatments and a lot of rookie mistakes, Chloe has been inseminated. We were supposed to pull the CIDR Monday at noon. Well, after at VERY long weekend with lots of driving, and a late arrival at home Sunday night, we made our first rookie mistake. We were supposed to pull Chloe's CIDR and give her a hormone shot at noon. We were so distracted from this weekend's exciting events that we totally forgot. We got up at 6 a.m. and did it. Not only did we do it at the wrong time, but I realized that I am totally inexperienced at giving cows injections. She doesn't particularly like having a huge needle shoved into her thigh, and understandable jerked away from me. The needle bent about 45 degrees, and half the injection got squirted on the floor. I had to stick her again and inject the rest.

Realizing our mistake afterwards, we called the AI specialist and asked him if our blunder was going to effect her breeding. He said it was probably best if he rearrange his schedule to come out at 7 a.m. Wednesday instead of the previously agreed upon noon. I apologized profusely for bungling very clear instructions, but he understood. The next injection came Tuesday morning. I again bent the needle when she jumped (but not as bad) and had to reinject her. This time she's had enough and promptly kicked me in the leg. Cow kicks (usually) don't cause damage, but they do hurt.

Despite our mistakes, the AI specialist arrived this morning, declared the drugs seemed to be working, and did his magic on her (the kind I want no part of learning). In about 17-21 days, if we don't see any signs of heat (the most obvious of which would be Pumpkin mounting Chloe), we can feel confident she's bred. We will still do a pregnancy test to be sure. Fingers crossed.

Also, just FYI, the cows mounting other cows in heat is not a homosexual tendency. The most common theory is that it is to let any bulls around know that the one being mounted is ready for some...ehhh...."romance". Sure, we don't have a bull, but cows don't care. They run of instinct anyway.