Coming next year: calves!

After many months of looking, we finally have a bullfriend for Molly and Bridget the Irish Dexter heifers. As you know, Bridget has been screaming like crazy every 21 days because like most adolescents, she thinks she needs a boyfriend. I've tried to explain to her that she's too young for such things, but you know teenagers. She doesn't listen!

I really did not think my requirements were that tough, but it took months to find a bull that satisfied me. All I wanted was, #1, a bull that was polled, meaning that he was born without the ability to grow horns. Personally, I don't want to have a testosterone-crazed male with two daggers on his head running around my farm. Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. I know my limitations, and if I was an adrenaline junkie, I'd be getting paid as a bull rider in rodeos.

I also wanted a bull that was friendly and had been handled. We'll be sharing him with another farm, so he needs to be halter trained so we can get him on and off a trailer twice a year without feeling like we're in a rodeo.

Finally, I wanted a bull that tested negative for two genetic problems that can be found in Irish dexters -- PHA and chondro. I won't bore you with the details, but they can both result in abortions or dead calves, so why take that risk, right?

I was thrilled to finally find Jaxon. He'll be a year old in July, and he was born on a farm in Iowa where they have ten Irish dexter milk cows. Jaxon was tied up every morning while his mother was being milked for the first four months of his life, so he is well acquainted with how a lead rope works. He is extremely friendly. Today I introduced him to alfalfa cubes, and now he thinks my hands are made of alfalfa, and he sticks out his big, long tongue, and tries to pull my hand into his mouth when he sees me! Okay, we'll have to work on that, but it's not a big problem.

We don't want any February calves, so Jaxon can't stay with the girls just yet. Molly was certainly acting like she was in heat when we brought him home. We thought we'd hide him in the barn, but Molly started mooing, and he mooed back, so it's not much of a secret. The due date for calves would have been February 14, which is still a lot colder than I want for calving, so we're waiting until their next heat cycle to breed them.

And if you are really wondering why we don't want a bull with horns, just look at this picture -- Would you want a bull with horns?