This past weekend was beautiful, I have a laundry list of items I want to accomplish prior to the cold weather setting in and I plan to take Friday off of work to accomplish those tasks. Anyone that lives on a farm knows that there are always a number of things that need to be buttoned up prior to the nasty cold setting in. Or at least if you do these things it can mean more time cozied up by the wood burner and less time braving the elements chopping ice in water buckets. We are working on Friday to add the additional stone around the concrete pads to make it level around the waters and readjust the first water in order to completely finish off the project. We also have the majority of a tri- axel of stone sitting outside of my garage, so we plan to add some to the run in shed and around the barn, perhaps using the rest by the gates or the chicken coop. The waters have been an absolute blessing to me this past week! I have been able to clean them out and check on them each day, without running hoses or carrying heavy water buckets while leading my bucks!
I have also embarked on a new endeavor, if you have been following along, I had my bucks collected back in October. What I learned from this was, not only did you need to prepare you buck before collection, having excellent nutrition, mineral supplementation, and well trimmed hooves. This was not to mention that the bucks were to be used prior to collection as a clean out the week prior and then rested for a week leading up to collection. This also meant I had to invest and research what semen tank I should purchase for long term storage and liquid nitrogen on an every 12 week basis to keep the semen frozen.I also determined what canes what bucks the bucks should be stored in long term and I thought I was done.
Boy was I wrong. Once I was handed the collection record, I read through it and found there were several more steps I needed to complete prior to saying I was done. The copy of the collection recorded was to be filed with ADGA, so I went ahead and mailed it to ADGA. Then I was reading about doing AI service memos because my long term plan is to use AI next fall on at least one of my does. Well, I found out in order to register kids from an AI service the bucks DNA must be on file. So I worked to register for DNA sampling of he boys through ADGA and I received the paperwork this week. This is something i have been trying to do for a while, but have been unsuccessful due to the new NG system, finally, a workaround through a Jot form was published and I was able to get the needed forms filed. This means I am staring at my forms to go pull hair and mail it in on my boys. I am hoping to get this done today. My thought process was, if I don't do it now the bucks could pass away and I could forget to pull hair and all of the effort I went through in order to get them collected would be for not, because I could not use them in my herd in the future. I hope this helps anyone in the future that is hoping or planning to get their bucks collected, so they are aware of the steps that need to be taken both before, during and after the collection to be successful in prolonging these genetics for the future. I hope you are all having a wonderful week, enjoying the warm and dry fall weather. Take care and happy goating!
