Well yesterday I spent a considerable amount of computer time imputing breeding records. We use the AIMS program developed by the Angus association for our herd records. This is a wonderful tool, one I am sure would be even more powerful if I knew more about using it. I do use it to enter all my breeding, birth, weaning and yearling records. I fail when it comes to putting in cost and medical records and customer records. Bottom line this is a tool and a tool is only as good as the operator if I had to give myself a grade on using AIMS I think I would give myself a C+. Today is the 30th of December 2009, so I am going to make one of those New Year’s resolutions and that is to try to bring my grade up to at least a B+ by this time next year. I need to take some quiet time to actually study AIMS and make it my mission to input more of the information that will help make our operation more efficient and profitable. We ask for efficiency in our cattle, maybe it is time that we take some of the pressure off of them and put it on ourselves to be more efficient. So far we have bred 7 heifers AI on December 16th the balance went in with bulls on December 3rd, we then A I’d 36 cow on December 23rd with the bull going in with them on the 28th. We DNA test all calves that we are going to register so going right in with the bull after being A I’d is not a problem for us. The last shot was given to our recipient cows yesterday this morning they are all in heat so we are about six days from the end of at least the artificial breeding season. We will be implanting some of the old genetics out of the tank this year. We have several different matings out of VDAR Elluna 97 This famous pathfinder is one of the most dominating females ever born in the VDAR program and several of her daughters are in ET programs across the US. Some of her sons include the $23,000 VDAR New Trend 913 and Alta Genetics stud VDAR New Trend 831. A grandson, VDAR Lucy Boy 2000 was the record breaking top gaining bull over all breeds and top seller at the 1999 Midland Bull Test. Needless to say we are excited to see what these calves will look like. We flushed a daughter of hers out of Bon View Bando 598 last year to Boyd New Day 8005 and have two bulls and two heifers on the ground from that flush. The claves look really good and we still have 13 grade 1’s in the tank from the flush so we couldn’t be more pleased. Dr Harley Schneider of Precise Genetics Inc. will be doing the implanting on January 6th, Dr. Schneider does a great job for us he and his staff are very professional and easy to work with, last year they flushed two cows we got twenty eggs out of the 0168 cow registration #14071041 he implanted 7 and we have 4 calves. The other cow that was flushed last year was our 658 cow registration #14913872 we got nine eggs of which 6 were implanted and we have five calves on the ground from that cow. After Dr. Schneider finishes we will be able to take a little break and just let the bulls finish up! Then we can start getting yearling measurements and planning for next year. I guess that is what I love about the cattle business your never really finished there is always another challenge waiting for you but isn’t that what keeps life interesting?
Happy New Year!
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