Page 28 of The First Day of Breeding Season
If I thought he wanted to make small talk, I’d compliment him on this.
Instead, I dig out my notebook and quickly jot down what I observed at the watering hole, including how the first thing Drew did was count.
Ranchers are always doing head counts, I write.Breeding is a numbers game.
I know the math. A mature bull is likely to breed forty or fifty cows over a season. A young bull, maybe only thirty. And it will take probably two months for all the cows and heifers to go into heat twice.
But something I’ve never thought about before right now is just how many times the bulls will service those cows and heifers over those two months to result in those thirty to fifty pregnancies.
It’s probably a lot more than once. Of course it is, but…how many?
Thatmath is beyond me.
That math is why I’m here on this mountain, trying to pretend I don’t want to kiss the off-limits rancher. Trying to pretend I’m totally fine with the fact that he can’t look me in the eye after last night.
Last night….
I shiver at the reminder of just how hot his kisses were, desperate and possessive.
“You got a question?”
Sucking in a breath, I lift my head and pretend I wasn’t just thinking about how wet and squirmy I got when Drew shoved his tongue down my throat.
He’s leaning against a tree not far from where I’m sitting on a log. Now he’s staring down the hill to where Ten Gallon is still doing a lot of sniffing, but if he noticed me thinking, he must have been looking at me when I was writing.
“Umm…” I take a deep breath. This is the thing we’re going to talk about all summer, I better rip off the awkward bandage now. “I was thinking about breeding math. I know that with a natural cover program….” My voice fades out, nerves getting the better of me.
Drew waits patiently. Giving me the space to find my courage again, I guess.
I appreciate that. I swallow hard. “The math is different from a breeding program. He’s going to service them a lot more often before it takes, right?”
“Yep.”
“Do you observe any difference there between cows and heifers?” I put my notebook away, then stand so I can see better down the hill.
The storm clouds are gathering, and the wind is picking up, which is interfering with Ten Gallon’s efforts to find a cow who is already in heat, since the cows are bunching up now against the weather.
“If anything, the heifers take faster, I think. I’m pretty strict about only keeping the oldest calves. They’re ready for it, I find. Where some of the cows don’t take on their first heat, and they need another one to fall pregnant, which means their calves are born later into the winter, and when it comes time to wean them…we sell those ones off.”
I wish I hadn’t put my notebook away, but I’m not going to forget that detail.
I won’t forget anything he says. All of Drew’s wisdom burns into my memory in a different way from anything else I’ve learned.
He adjusts his hat and squints up at the sky. “Sorry about the rain. That’s not fun on your first day.”
“It’s okay. Lots more days to come.”
These bulls will be up here for the next two months, and in that time should cover the whole herd. But the first few days are crucial to the success of the breeding season, especially with Ten Gallon, the untested young bull.
I know Drew will be observing him the most closely.
My job will be find the balance between assisting him as needed, and documenting as much as I can about the rest of the herd, and what the experienced bull, Thor, does with the cows.
“So what are you looking for with Ten Gallon?” I glance around. “And are you worried about where Thor has gone?”
He chuckles. “No. That bull knows how to find his way to the ladies, don’t worry. But right now, he’s about two hundred yards south of us.”
“How do you know that?”
