No bull

Garry tells me he has not taken back the job of making feed for the cows every morning.  The cows were milking so well when he got back that he let Artom keep feeding them. He just goes over in the mornings to check on how milking went, if there are any cows in heat, and other things. When Garry leaves for Christmas,  they usually put a bull in the barn to breed cows, but Max decided that the bull we have now in the dry cow pen was too dangerous to have running free in the barn. He was afraid someone would get hurt. That's just one of the reasons why breeding cows artificially with frozen semen is a good thing.

I know that we tell you that one of the things  Garry does in Ukraine  is breeding cows artificially in Nikolaipolia and other villages.  It's kind of an outreach thing, it helps them improve their cattle, people were very excited about the large bull calves that were born (although Garry recently bought some Jersey semen for people who think that their Holstein cross heifers are growing too big).  Often he breeds 2, 3, 5, 6 cows a day. I talked to him off and on today, and I'm pretty sure he breed 17 - no he says 14- cows today.

I actually video chatted with him in someone's dark barn in some village as he finished breeding his last cow of the day around 7:30 pm his time (the first ones were at 6 am) with a big dog barking and  Valentina laughing in the background.

He used to have people pick him up and take them to their house to breed their cow. He also used to get directions from Max Rudei after they phoned Max to ask if Garry could come breed their cow.

 Occasionally someone does come get him to breed a cow now, but most of them have Garry's cell number and call him. It's always interesting to hear his end of a conversation in Russian about where he needs to go breed a cow.

 He remembers his usual customers  by a distinctive thing about their place, round window, large walnuts, near the zoo park, ect. He gets them to mention their village and which place it is. If he's going to a new place or he's unsure of the address,  he often takes Valentina or another of the students with him to help find the place by talking to someone in the correct village and explaining where to go to him.

He often has people ask him why their cow isn't coming in heat (at the right part of the estrus cycle to get pregnant) or whether their cow is pregnant, after all, she was bred x months ago. Garry went back to Ukraine with a new tool to help find out if cows are pregnant,  a portable ultrasound machine for cows.  He took it as his carry on baggage in its case.  I think he's tried it out in our barn so far, I have not heard he's used it for someone else

's cow yet.. He practiced here in Manitoba on the cows here, even on the morning he flew out.