An Interlude about Artificial Insemination

Phil and I need to figure out when to make a trip up to Vermont to buy our cows. We have to wait a bit, because rural Vermont up near the Canadian border can be difficult to drive around in winter. If we wait until April, though, it’ll be Babydoll lambing season. Thus, I’m hoping for the end of March. Before we can make the trip, though, we need to service the truck, buy a used livestock trailer, figure out what to do with all the children, prepare a place for the cattle to move into when they arrive. . . .

But, we’re not sure anymore exactly what we’ll be buying. We’re pretty sure we’ll get two just weaned heifers to use as oxen, and a yearling heifer that will hopefully be bred. We were going to get a bull, too, in order to avoid Artificial Insemination (AI). But now we’re not so sure.

On the anti-AI side: one of Phil’s favorite agricultural authors, Newman Turner, says that Artificial Insemination (AI) “is no doubt still the supreme abomination of man’s relationship with animals.” It is quite unnatural.

On the pro-AI side: a farmer chooses the best genetics he can find, and so herd improvement can happen quickly. And we could buy a “straw” from a top bull for $26, and not have to feed or shelter a bull on the farm until we birth a decent bull. Which is no guarantee—I have read that truly top bulls are “one in thousands,” so there’s no guarantee we’d ever get a superior bull.

Moreover, we know that we won’t be able to buy a great bull up in Vermont. Their best bulls are too valuable, so they’d sell us a cull. I suppose, in truth, anything that we buy is someone else’s cull, but since a bull is 50% of the herd (and since his genetics spread so rapidly and thoroughly through a herd, I’ve read that a bull should rightly be called 75% of the herd), it’s best to have the best genetics possible.

Not really a pro-AI, but more a resigned note of reality: all the meat chickens that we raised in 2008 were bred through AI. I suspect that just about all chicken purchased in the United States comes from AI birds—the modern meat birds have such heavy breasts they cannot breed naturally.

So I suppose we are not morally opposed to AI. And I suppose we probably should just get heifers, and order straws as needed. And trust that we will, one day, have a remarkable bull of our own.