Dud A.I. again.

So sad. No baby cows. We have been waiting and watching and hoping and having NO luck. We are finally giving up and calling this a bust. After two AI tries on Mattie and three on Brigid, we are thinking we need a bull to get the job done.

Both these mamas are proven (which means having had babies before) and both got pregnant by a bull. The problem is we don't feel qualified to take care of a bull.

Bulls are big and they sound bad. We wonder if our fences are strong enough and what would happen if it got loose. How do you catch a bull? Most likely, they aren't as bad as we imagine but even if they are half as much trouble as we are thinking they are more trouble than we are wanting.

So we that leaves us scheming on how to either rent a bull (now, there's a business!) and having it live here for a few weeks (kind of scary since it has the same problems as owning a bull only for a shorter period of time) OR taking our cows to a pasture where there is already a bull. The latter is our preferred option but where and how? Esp since we don't have a way to haul cows around. If we could find a pasture that would accept our cows we'd have to find a cowboy for hire to move the cows. And then once the cows were pregnant and we wanted to move the cows back home how would we persuade them to come away from the herd. They are going to like life out there with a bunch of their friends. Wouldn't that bull protect them when we were out there flapping our arms in the field trying to corral our girls? Oh my.

No matter how I think about this, it's complicated. If only somebody would rent us Ferdinand. Then we would be fine.