Cows

Cows with calves at foot, bred heifers and breeding bulls:

in a Costa Rican listing, the stage of a cow’s working life tells you more than her breed. A cow with her calf at foot has calved and is feeding it, and the two move to a new farm as a pair. A bred heifer was confirmed in calf at palpation but has not calved yet, so she brings a second animal on the way and a first calving nobody has seen. Then there are the weaned calves: on beef cow-calf farms they come off their mothers at six to eight months and go on to growing and finishing farms, most of them in the Huetar Norte and the Chorotega.

One calf a year and the palpation behind it:

a cow-calf farm lives on every cow producing a calf each year, so she has to be back in calf within about three months of calving, with the last one still suckling. Many farms run a controlled breeding season, and a single palpation by the vet afterwards picks out the cows that did not take. Those empty cows are the commonest reason a grown cow leaves a herd, so ask plainly whether she was confirmed in calf, and when. The calving dates sit in a notebook on a beef farm and in VAMPP Bovino on most specialised dairies, and both are worth a look.

Bulls, artificial insemination and the semen tank:

most beef herds still breed with their own bull, one for every thirty or forty cows, so a single bull shapes a whole year’s calves. Ask for a recent breeding soundness exam, since a bull that has run with other herds is also the usual carrier of venereal disease. Specialised dairies breed mostly by AI with imported semen. In beef herds AI is newer, and it is how many farms make Brahman and Charolais crosses without keeping a second bull. That brings in the kit: a liquid nitrogen tank for the straws, an insemination gun, which only needs a straight barrel and a free-running plunger, and a flask of warm water for thawing.

Frost on the neck of a used semen tank:

is the sign to walk away. It means a knock has broken the vacuum between the walls, and a tank in that state can boil dry within hours, straws and all. Ask whether it has ever been dropped, then fill it, measure the level with a plastic or wooden stick, never metal, and measure again a week later: a sound tank loses a little, a failing one a lot.

Condition, feet and calving ease in a cow or heifer:

look at her ribs, hips and tailhead first. A first-calf cow that has gone thin feeding her calf is the one that fails to rebreed. Watch her walk on hard ground. For a bred heifer, ask which bull she is carrying to, because a heavy-calf breed on a young heifer raises the risk of a hard first calving. Ask how the herd is worked, too. Cattle moved across open pasture by a sabanero on a horse can turn wild in a small corral handled on foot, and a cow that has never been tied will fight a halter.

Moving a cow and her calf to a new farm:

state where she is in the cycle: calved on what date and with which calf beside her, confirmed in calf and to which bull, or empty. Add the breed or cross and how many calvings she has behind her. Two photos do most of the work: one broadside with the calf in the frame, one from behind showing the udder and hindquarters. A farmer hauling from Sarapiquí will plan around two things: whether cow and calf can ride together, and whether a livestock trailer can back right up to the corral gate. Keep the pair together until both are loaded: a cow parted from her calf in a strange yard will go through a fence to get back to it.