Freemartin

I apologize for the confusion about freemartins. I thought I'd explained that and I probably should have linked to that post, but I'm lazy. So this Friday, our lesson will be about freemartins.

There is an excellent article that goes in to specifics here, but for those of you who just want the basics, I'll explain. A freemartin is the female of a set of male-female twins. During their development in utero, their hormones mix, making the female infertile. Since over 90% of these females will be infertile, they are typically raised as feeder cattle from birth. Some farmers keep them and check them at breeding age (typically 14 months), but it is rare to get one that can be bred. It is more expensive to raise a heifer than a bull/steer, so knowing that a female is a freemartin saves money in the long run. However, since we are unsure, it's better to err on the side of caution as a heifer makes more money in the long run.

So there is today's lesson! I had no idea what a freemartin was when I was dating Pat.

Sickness, Be Gone!

Our house has become an infirmary the past week. First Tate ended up with a double ear infection. Probably my fault. I was telling his teacher how he's never had one, so I doubted that's what his cold was. Less than an hour later he was complaining his ear hurt. Thankfully it didn't burst and he's been doing much better, although I think his cold is returning to his eyes. The poor kid looks like a raccoon.

Next up was me. I finally broke down and went to urgent care last night to discover I have bronchitis. Apparently my limit is 4 nights of no sleep before visiting the dr. Let me tell you how not fun bronchitis is. I'm hoping it clears quickly. I'm exhausted. I finally got an hour of solid sleep today, which is the most I've had in about a week. Fun stuff!

Today was Cole's turn. After complaining to everyone else, except me, that his ear hurt, I finally took him in. He too has an ear infection.

My goal is to make it through Thanksgiving with no impromptu visits to the doctor. I do have to go in next week, but that's when we should find out all about #3!

School Daze

I don't know if I've even blogged about school yet. Sigh, it's November already...

The school year started off a little rough for Tate. I think it was the combo of school 2 mornings a week and swimming 2 mornings a week. For about the first month we were on the go every day. That and me being gone with Cross Country every afternoon and trying to take away the nukkers, was probably not a good combination for him. He was rotten! He threw fits, refused to nap. Ugh! He was less than pleasant. Once swimming lessons were done, he seemed to do much better. He's actually kind of fun to have home alone.

He seems to be doing well in school. I haven't heard otherwise, so I'm assuming he's doing fine. I know he doesn't talk much, but he makes up for that at home. I'm still not sure about his teacher. She seems ok, but I have no idea what goes on at school. That's another blog post though.

Cole is doing fantastic this year. I am so glad we gave him another year of preschool before sending him to kindergarten. He is so much more outgoing and independent. He can name nearly all of the kids in his class. Last year he could barely name one. He even has a little crush on one of our neighbor girls in his class. The highlight of his day is if he gets to play with B~. He answers questions in class where last year he preferred to sit back and watch. I went to his pumpkin party at school last week and it was actually fun. Last year I had a clingy boy that didn't want to do anything if I wasn't right there. This year I got to watch him play the games and his excitement at all his candy and prizes. He's a completely different kid. His teachers agree too at how much he's changed from last year. I certainly don't regret that decision at all!

One of These Is Not Like The Other

Now that you have that song in your head...

We've had a lot of twins this past year. It's starting to slow down, finally, but twins come with problems. Yes, there are the typical difficult birth, etc. problems, but we've had a couple of unusual problems. Below are 3 calves, in order of birth. The first one was born 2 days before the last 2. First problem? These 3 calves are from 2 mothers. Which 2 would you guess are twins?

Second problem? The last one is a bull calf, which means one of the heifers is a free martin and no good. But which one? Unfortunately, this is the second time we've had this problem within about a month of each other. We'll raise both heifers as heifers and find out in about a year which one is good or not. Welcome to life on a farm!!!