Bonnie owes us nothing. She's filled the freezer with beef twice. She's provided most of our milk and a lot our butter since she gave birth to her first calf.
Sometimes cows just stop cycling. Sometimes they cycle, but fail to breed. I'm sure there's a cause for either of these situations, but it would be expensive to delve into that cause. So I just take what life hands me and make the best of it.
Normally Bonnie would be bred by now. I would wean Max, her calf, about two months before her next calf was due. We'd butcher Max at that time, or else sell him. We plan to sell, in this instance. That money would go a long way toward financing a trip to Wyoming. If Bonnie isn't bred, we'll probably go ahead and let Max nurse her a couple months longer than usual. Then we'll sell Bonnie (and her calf, if we don't have a private buyer at that time) at the Kingsville sale, where she'll probably be bought by some big buyer and end up as ground beef in a supermarket somewhere. That's how things go in the country. That hamburger you grill at home was somebody's cow, steer, or bull at some time in the past.
This gloomy picture is made brighter by the fact that Jody, who is over six months old, can be bred shortly after she becomes a yearling. So in eighteen months or so, I should have another cow giving me milk and presenting me with a calf each year... hopefully a heifer calf or two! Also, we plan to attend the Kingsville sale tomorrow, and you never know when a cheap, bred Jersey cow will go through that ring.
As Rick Harrison of Pawn Stars says, "You never know WHAT is going to walk through that door!"
