Buttercup is in heat

Hainoa is much calmer now she has found a good herd leader in Buttercup. She is happy to br stroked while lying down chewing her cud. Doug was stroking her and having a bit of a chat this afternoon in a nice mellow way when Buttercup rushed up and leapt on Hainoa. Luckly her bell warned Doug that she was approaching at speed so he was able to jump out of the way.

This evening we went out to see how they were to find the neighbours's cows in the next door field again (they have been gone a few days) and a lot of mooing and jostling going on. One of the books we have says you can tell when a cow is in heat because it 'moos amorously' we couldn't decide whether Buttercups moos were amorous of not? 

Apparently a cow tries to mount others as she comes in to heat and if there is a bull around she will try to mount him. Then at some point she will stand to let the bull mount, which is called 'standing heat'. This is th point you want to call the AI guy and he needs to turn up about 12 hours later. The window seems to be quite short. I tried to call a guy today (the people we got the Jersy's off gave it to us) but just got voicemail. We don't really think we will get her bred this heat, but it would be good to locate the right person and be all ready for next time. 

When we were out in the field she made a bit of a dart towards me as if she might be going to try to mount me too (having given all the other cows a go) but Doug and I both shouted NO really loudly and stepped energetically towards her and she seemed to get the message. Phew! The other cows all seem a bit frisky too in sympathy. 

This is her staring longingly at the neighbour's cows, we are not quite sure if the bull is there or not.