Allison has had a fun filled week with an International 4-H Exchange student from Korea. What a fun experience! She has also learned more about the breeding process not only in cows but pigs too! See what she had to say about her week on the ranch:
Early this week we tested the bulls. They’ll start breeding in about three weeks.
We brought up the heifers from the winter grounds and prepared them for breeding. We gave them wormer and mineral and then trailed them out to their pasture for breeding within the next few weeks. When we checked on them the next day, we discovered that they had escaped through a gate bordering the neighbor’s land. We had to scout out where they had went, separate them from the neighbor’s cows, and separate out the dry cows that had managed to get into the herd as well. It was quite the process.
We have an International 4-H Youth Exchange student from Korea staying with us for a week, so we had a week full of touristy things. We went to Devils Tower, the Buffalo Jump, and a fish hatchery. We also took a tour of a coal mine.
Pigs were my main focus in 4-H, and we ordered semen for many of our sows and gilts. It was super interesting to see the semen collected because I had no idea how the process was performed. I learned that you can do it with an electric probe, mechanically, or with an artificial female. I was able to view the semen under a microscope for motility and morphology.
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