2 Calves have a modern family

You're wondering how 2 cute fuzzy calves could have a modern family? Normally twins are just twins.

What if the twins have two different sires?

Before we start tossing hurtful names around this cow let me explain what happened.

The breeding program that we use for our herd involves 2 steps; artificial insemination, and natural service. Artificial insemination is the first step, where we have preplanned each sire that is bred to each cow. A few days to a week after the artificial insemination the cows are turned out with a bull. The idea being that if the artificial breeding wasn't successful then the bull they are with will breed them.

All of this is our effort to ensure that all of our cows are successfully bred.

Over the past couple of years we started doing parentage verification testing on our calves. We need to be sure that the calves have the correct parents because the sire changes the value of the calf.

The cow in question had a set of twins, each twin had a different sire!

We were shocked, we've heard of this happening in dairy cows but never in beef cows. Then again how many people perform parentage testing on all their calves.

I'd love to hear your stories, if you've ever experienced anything like this please comment :)

1st post for Name a Calf Contest

Hey everyone!

Once you've read the post "Hoof Prints in the Lawn" go to the facebook page (link below) and send a private message to answer the following question:

What is the name of the horse?

Remember if you want a good chance of winning you have to keep up with all 10 contest blog posts!!

Find the Down A Dirt Road facebook page here:

https://www.facebook.com/downdirtroads

Hoof Prints In The Lawn.

Hey everyone!

Where did that week go?! What a long and busy week, I missed all of you!

Some of you know I work at a horse farm over the weekends so I'm just in the process of thawing myself out.

While I re-gain feeling in my legs I thought I'd tell a funny story that happened a couple of years ago at the horse farm.

There's a very large, sweet, paint gelding that goes by the name of Buddy. He's a very docile horse, sometimes goofy, and has a unique personality.  Every morning all of the horses are fed, blanketed (in the winter) and taken out to their fields. Sometimes Buddy has other plans! This particular morning I opened his stall door to put his halter on...

A halter goes over the horses head so they can be led, basically it lets the person leading them "think" they have control over what direction they go.



Anyways Buddy turned away from me in the stall, I left the entrance of the stall and followed him. He then spun around and ran through the door, and out into the great wide world!

I only left the door open about a foot, apparently that's enough to encourage him.  He proceeded to prance around the barn owners' (my bosses') house, leaving perfect hoof impressions all over the lawn. He seemed so proud of himself too! Almost as if he was taunting everyone, saying "look what I did!"

Thankfully Buddy is very food oriented, and a bucket of grain persuaded him to let himself be caught.  Needless to say I close the door now whenever I have to go in a stall with Buddy.

And this is the culprit himself!

Thank you to Danielle for letting me post about her horse :)