Artificial insemination... practical?

Thank you for all the thoughts so far! I do know 2 dairy farmers nearby that may be willing to do AI, but they are so busy that I hate to ask them. I live in New Brunswick, Canada, and I only know of one Dexter farmer in this province so far, but there may be others. Dexter semen sources will probably tougher to find here too!

Making matters more difficult is the fact that the pasture I was planning on using is not in view of my house. I would have at least a 5 minute walk each day to observe the cattle for signs of estrous. But I still think it would be more practical than getting a bull for 2 cows!

I was curious and looked around a bit. There is a whole list of bulls with semen available at the link below that might help you

http://dextercattle.org/adca/adca_ai_bulls.html

Seriously, if you know the dairy farmers, just talk to them. They may have a herd mgr that could do the AI, or at the least they can tell you which company is in the area that you can call to get the cows bred. Any breeder worth his **** would be willing to store a little semen in his tank for you since it would be less than a cane, and since it would create a "job" for him to breed your cows. By the way, semen is sold in straws, and you can buy 1 -2 -10 or more. A cane is 10 straws, 1/2 cane is 5 straws. Talk to the AI rep. Select Sires just joined forces with a Canadian AI company, maybe they have a breeder in your area. If you are wanting to breed dexters, talk to the dexter breeder, find out where they get their semen. It can be shipped in a small tank, called a shipper tank; it gets transferred to your tank or whomever is storing it, then it is available for breeding whenever you need it. It's not that a big a deal, just getting it all together the first time. And seriously look into a heat patch or K-Mar or whatever the AI company in your area has, You will notice it as soon as it turns red ( or some are florescent colors) and you will only have to check them 2x a day when you are looking for heats.

farmerjan said:

There are heat detectors; like K-MARS that select sires uses and I know other AI companies have something similiar. If there are at least 2 animals in a field together , the k-mar is put just ahead of her tailhead . It goes on with some glue and has a tube inside that breaks and spreads a red dye inside the tube when the cow in heat is standing to be ridden by another cow. Works really good for the most part. I use it on my dairy cows when I get into breeding - in fact they will all be getting k-mars in the next week - so that I can get calves for early next fall and get more calves grafted on and some good growth before winter. Have had to try to do some figuring due to possible surgery and who will be taking care of stuff, so have held off breeding before now. They also seem to show more heats when it cools off a bit and they will settle easier than in the hot weather. They would work if you have the 2 cows together as they will help "show" heats in each other. Sometimes it is harder when a cow is by herself.

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Farmer Jan: I would suggest that you try the Estrotect patches. Much easier to apply and just as effective. I used to use Kamars, but I got sick of my fingers sticking together for several days after I applied the glue. We now apply the Estrotect patches to thousands of cows/heifers each summer. If you're interested, I could mail you a few to try. PM your address to me if you're interested. Estrotect patches cost about the same as Kamars.

jhm47 said:

Farmer Jan: I would suggest that you try the Estrotect patches. Much easier to apply and just as effective. I used to use Kamars, but I got sick of my fingers sticking together for several days after I applied the glue. We now apply the Estrotect patches to thousands of cows/heifers each summer. If you're interested, I could mail you a few to try. PM your address to me if you're interested. Estrotect patches cost about the same as Kamars.

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Haven't found any tab or whatever to be able to figure out how to PM. Got to be a way to do it but nothing I have done so far has turned up how to do it. Computers are not my favourite thing in life let me tell you....

Up top there's a selection over there on the right hand side for "Inbox"... it's the center tab of 3. If you click that, (I prefer to RIGHT click it and open it in a new tab so I don't lose the original tab I was in) it will open your PM Inbox. Now, a little below those three tabs and slightly to the left you'll see a selection to "Start A New Conversation"... If you click that, it will open a blank PM "sheet" where you type in who you wish to participate in the conversation, a subject line to say what you wish to chat about, then the area for your message. For participants, if you start typing the name(s) it will offer suggestions so you can click on the member you mean to add. When you're finished typing up your text, down at the bottom, you click on the "Start Conversation" button and you're done! It will send your private message off to whomever you included in the participants box.

Thanks for the PM info. I did go there but wasn't sure if it would be just for one person to answer. The cattle talk forum specifically says private notifications so at least I could figure that out. There are days I wish these computers would just go away, but then I wouldn't have met so many other people so .... Just wish they were simpler some times...

Those heat detection patches only work if you have more than one cow as they are "activated" by the other cow(s) mounting the cow in heat. Just something to keep in mind.

We generally use Genex to breed our cows and it costs approximately $30 to AI one cow. This year we successfully settled the Jersey (to a Red Angus) through AI, but the 2 young heifers (Angus and Jersey/R. Angus) didn't settle the first go-round so they were shipped down the road to a neighbor's registered Hereford bull who settled both within a couple days of their arrival. I can't give you a good idea on stud fees as this particular farmer didn't charge us anything.