Finally getting around to getting this posted. Here are the pics from when our bull, Cleatus, joined our dairy girls on June 9th:

Instructions from the “head honcho”, lol…

Cleatus was with the yearling bulls in “The Shire” on the left. Mike & Michael are in the adjacent field, “Prancing Pony” on the right. They are getting the bulls to walk down towards the gate that connects the two fields. Then they sorted Cleatus by himself & kept the younger bulls in “The Shire”. A little bit stressful, but it all turned out well. 🙂

Here you can see Mike leading Cleatus towards me & Paul (in “Mordor”), with Michael behind Cleatus.

Paul’s job was to open the fence to let Cleatus through once he saw him getting close… Didn’t want the curious dairy girls to mess things up!

And here he goes… I think it’s cute how the girls are watching him, lol… 🙂

We’ll keep Cleatus with them for 8 weeks. In the past, we’ve done 12 weeks, but we’d really like to close our calving window a bit. We keep track of the girls’ heats on a big piece of glassboard in the milking barn. When the vet comes this fall to pregnancy check the herd, those dates help us determine their due dates. 🙂

We are prayerful all our girls will get bred. This is another difficult part of farming – praying & waiting. Although, come to think of it, isn’t that the challenge of daily life? 🙂

Father, prepare us for what is to come for our dairy herd this fall. We pray their bodies are healthy & fertile. May our grasses nourish and sustain them so they can continue to do the same for us. We thank You for the calves and milk they’ve blessed us with this season, and we look forward to seeing how You continue to lead us. Amen.