Dairy Genetics 101

This is Rosie.
Pat bought her from a neighbor* when we started dairying full time 4 years ago. She is my cow. Apparently all beings that are considered to have red hair have a special bond that none of us know about and "go" together. At any rate, Pat bought her as a bred heifer**.

This is Rita, Rosie's daughter.
Dairy farmers take breeding very seriously. We have a professional come in and mate cows. We artificially inseminate our cows (well, Pat and his mom do). We choose bulls based on many characteristics, like production, demeanor, feet and legs, udder characteristics (and I actually mean udder, not other), calving ease, etc. After Rosie had Rita, I started picking the bull she was bred to. Her second calf: bull. Her third calf and Rita's first calf were born a day apart and were both bulls. Rosie actually laid on hers and killed it. One reason we remove calves shortly after birth. Holsteins tend to be poor mothers. Semen companies actually offer sexed semen. It's more expensive and there are fewer semen per straw so on our farm, we tend to stick with the regular stuff and take our chances. Our company had offered a semi-sexed semen. Meaning they removed the males, but kept in the unknowns so there was more semen but not as high a percentage of female sperm. Recently, they decided to go with straight sexed semen so we got a few straws of the semi-sexed stuff and tried that. Nine months later, Rosie's fourth calf, and Rita's second calf were once again both bulls. Very pretty, but bulls (that's actually Rita's calf in my header).

Meet B, (she doesn't have a name yet).
B gave birth to this beautiful girl today.
So your genetics lesson for today: If you want red and white bull calves, let me pick the sire. If you want a red and white Holstein, breed a nearly completely black heifer to a black and white bull.

I thought maybe the mother heifer came from a cow that Pat had bought. We had gotten a red bull calf from a black cow out of a purchased heifer, so I thought maybe it would be somewhere from that line of genetics. Turns out this is the great-granddaughter of Pat's fair cow, Buck. A genetic family that has been on the farm since the 70s. I'm thrilled. Rosie's body is failing and there is little hope of getting a heifer calf from Rita. While the bull calves are nice for building up the boys' college funds (all the red bulls are sold for the boys), more heifers=more babies.

So once again I need names. We typically don't name cows until they calve, but I like to pick out the names of my red and whites. We keep track of family lines by keeping with the same first letter, so our little calf and her mother need names that start with B. The family line has names like Buck and Bambi, so any deer or hunting related names that start with B would be great. Leave your suggestions in the comments and the winner once again, gets bragging rights!

*neighbor refers to anyone in a 10 mile, or more, radius.
**bred heifer means she hadn't had a calf yet, but was pregnant. Cows are considered heifers until they have their first calf, but we usually refer to them as heifers until they are pregnant with their second calf.