Saturday January 21, 2005

Walters Ranch

Today the Escuela enterprise met at the corrals in Walters Ranch before the sun had even considered showing up. We huddled in our dark cars, cuddling our Starbucks and fogging up the windows. We sat and watched the Eastern horizon slowly and torturously pale, giving us the light necessary to gather the 122 pairs of cows and calves into the waiting corrals.

Today our task was to breed 122 cows that had been given progesterone implants one week and approximately 52 hours before in order to synchronize their reproductive cycles. Synchronization is important in reproductive management of animals, cattle in particular, because it dictates that all cows are at the same part of their estrous cycles. This allows for all 122 cows to be bred by artificial insemination on the same day. This gives a greater selection of sires, with their contribution consisting of a thin straw of semen frozen in liquid nitrogen. Synchronization is also a beneficial tool for creating a compact calving interval nine months down the road. Farmers use this reproductive technology in order to address management issues, such as feed availability and to increase the productivity of a farm.

I was very nervous as this was an important day. Each project member was set in a rotation to breed all of the cows, putting pressure on each of us to do a good job. Escuela is a learning project, but it is also a business and the managers do not appreciate losses in profit. If you cannot breed correctly, not only does that mean a loss of $20-60 per straw of semen, but possibly a calf in the fall. I was also nervous because the last time I had my arm up the backside of a cow was two years ago in a dairy science class. In this course I was actually received a certificate in the technique of artificially inseminating cattle, but that was so long ago. So I was very rusty when it came to the techniques of thawing and loading the semen gun, let along breeding, itself.

It actually takes quite a lot of arm strength to AI a cow. One arm wears a long glove and is inserted rectally, searching for and grasping the cervix, fighting against the clamping rectal contractions cutting off the circulation to that arm. The other hand, meanwhile, is busy trying to guide the pipette, or semen gun, through the reproductive tract to deposit the semen into the uterus. After the job is done, you are literally shaking from the muscular efforts.

I did not do well at all, unfortunately. I needed help to finish what I started, but it is all about the learning experience and “Learning by Doing” as Cal Poly’s motto goes. Very disappointing session, but filled with practical lessons.

When not exploring cows in odd places, I was able to observe the calves in the corral. I love cows in general, but especially calves. Not even in the girlish simpering about how cute they are, but everything about them. Yes, I give them names, but they also have personalities. I absolutely love watching calves when we are trying to move a herd of cows and calves. The little ones have dopey, confused looks in their eyes, puzzled where everyone is going. Then that look flicks to sudden panic and horror as they realize that mum is nowhere to be seen. They bawl, “Moooooooooooooommmmm!!!!! I’m loooooooost!!!” It adds to the hilarity that the calves don’t think to follow the great bovine battalion marching together, but try to run back to where they last were. Another habit of calves is to stop dead in their tracks, staring you in the eyes, thinking that if they hold perfectly still no one will see them. I love that you can look into their eyes and see the cogs of their mind turning in their heads. Cows bring such happiness into my life!

Sunday January 29, 2005

Just as a warning, this is a rant. Driving up to Peterson ranch this afternoon I was shocked to come across the mass arboreal murder taking place. The beautiful eucalyptus trees that have shaded the feed mill, the feedlot, and the bull test are being savagely mown down by hairy, overweight cretins in fluorescent vests. In the summer when it gets unbearably hot, there is some much needed comforting shade under these fragrant guardians. During wind-whipped storms, their branches sway and shed leaves in all directions. They hold the land stable; they act as nice bumpers for those whose breaking skills are not up to par. To me they stand watching over year after year of Cal Poly students. They have seen the succession of eager high school potential, to Poly student to teacher, teacher to department head, then to retirement. It just makes me so angry that all this history is being hewn in the name of new housing.

Cal Poly used to be a great agricultural college. Looking at archive photos this weekend, I was amazed to see hundreds of people show up at the beef unit to watch the showing and fitting class exhibit their cattle. When I took the class 50-odd years later, we were lucky if all the people registered in the class showed up. It seems that Cal Poly is moving farther and farther away from the Agricultural ties and more towards what is more profitable. Thus, new engineering buildings are being erected; our ag units are being shoved off campus, as far as possible, why not rebuild in Santa Cruz, even? Even now students from the other side of the campus don’t even realize that Cal Poly even has such strange beasts like cows or pigs or sheep. Just think in 5 years, when there is no agricultural affiliation represented on campus, prospective students will come to visit and remark, “Well, I thought this was supposed to be an ag school, but I guess not, I’ll just go to Davis.”

Buildings torn down, trees butchered and cleared, new fancy housing units going up, it seems like Cal Poly is going downhill. I know that evolution is mandatory, we cannot stay the same forever, but the death of those Eucalyptus trees represent the death of an era. This is the end to the small informal campus, where I could run from beef lab to my English class reeking like cow, to the sterile stereotypical university campus. How devastating, how awful, how BORING!

Just five days ago, I walked to my car parked under those fated Eucalypts, listening to the eerie creaking and groaning of the trees, despite the dead stillness in the air. They knew, and they were broadcasting their goodbyes through the song of their branches.