Hi to everyone out there!
We hope you all survived the terrible weather last week. We had a HUGE amount of rain here – but it did not do too much damage to the farm, thank goodness. Our heart goes out to all those who really suffered. Global warming is definitely having an affect!
On the farm:
On Monday we pregnancy scanned our main herd, and were a little surprised that the late calvers were still not pregnant. I can’t totally blame our bull, Tristan – as these girls were definitely late carvers.
The reason to run Tristan with these girls was that I was too busy closing out our end of year pie shipments, and did not have the time to monitor the cows for AI. The bonus is that we do have the time now, so we will monitor and AI all those girls not currently in calf. We have semen from a very special USA bull. Perhaps our most special girl, Phoebe, cycled last Wednesday – and we AIed her to this bull. We are checking the other girls 3 times per day – we don’t want to to miss miss any girls who might cycle (otherwise it will be another 21 days before they cycle again – and are ready to rebreed).
The smaller Angus yearling heifers have been running with our other bull, Mt Vernon. We had them pregnancy scanned on Saturday, and they are all in calf – well done, Mt Vernon! Almost all these girls are sold to a Taihape farm. There are three that will stay here, though.
Spotlight on:
One of the girls running with Mt Vernon (and is staying here) is very special to me.
This girl is named Vienna. She is a daughter of one of our foundation cows, Libby. She is a registered Angus heifer, and is just over 15 months old.
Vienna has the most amazing docile personalities. Every time I go to check them, she comes up to say hello, and really enjoys the interaction with me. It is quite special. She is most definitely a “keeper”. I can’t wait to see her first baby. She is due to calve on 30th November.
That’s all for this week. Lets hope the week ahead is a lot better than the previous week, weather wise!
Thanks so much!