I've been pretty busy lately and have barely found time to blog; so, I'm going to catch up now! First things first, this past Thursday was my final day at Kenrol Brahman Stud for a few week; I will return later this month for the Junior Beef Show. It was a crazy week, filled with early mornings and late nights. Since I have been at Kenrol, we have been preparing donor females to flush and receipts for the embryos. With eleven donor females, and double the amount of receipts, we had our work cut out for us! The donors were given injections to increase the number of eggs released during ovulation and were carefully monitored to see when they came in heat and later artificially inseminated. The receipts were also monitored to see when they came into heat and were then matched with the donor females that had similar cycles. This is where the early mornings and late nights come in!
On Wednesday, the Vet came by to begin the flush process. This was very exciting for me because I was able to be physically involved in the flush and I also got to see how the embryos were retrieved, evaluated, and placed into small syringes with a very fine flexible tube in place of a needle. The receipt females were surgically implanted with the embryos from donor females. I was able to watch the vet cut and enter either the left or right side of the female (depending on which ovary she ovulated on) and inject the embryo into the uterine horn. Since this was a surgical procedure, the receipts were then stitched up. In about 6 weeks, the receipts will have their stitches removed and will be preg tested.
Another cool thing about this week; I was able to help with the plunge dip for the second time. The cattle we dipped last week will have to be dipped a second time to insure that they are tick free. The property in which the cattle came from is in a tick populated area and the feedlot where they are headed is located in a "tick free zone" so in order for the cattle to be sold to the feedlot they have to be 100% tick free. Crazy thing is, if the inspectors find a single tick on any one of the cattle being brought to the "tick free zone", the entire load will be dismissed and will have to be sent back to be dipped again. So fingers crossed the cattle will be tick free after the second dip!
Here are some better pictures from the dip as promised!
Waiting to enter the dip.
Exiting the dip.
After exiting the dip, cattle are held in a holding pen for five minutes before returning to their paddocks.
I still cannot get over the beauty of the Australia sky, its amazing!
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