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A.I. trailer offers hands-on learning

Randy Dreher did not plan to teach other people how to do artificial insemination. It was just something he did for his cattle on his farm in western Iowa, near Audubon.

“I’ve been A.I.-ing cows for about 20 years,” Dreher said.

He said a few neighbors would ask him how to do it, and he worked as a semen sales representative for a company.

Then a friend from Dreher’s days in FFA and 4-H reached out asking Dreher to teach a course at a local community college. While teaching the course, Dreher brought in a tech to teach the students artificial insemination. There was one chute and one cow, so students had to take turns.

“I thought, I enjoy teaching the courses, but we need to find some way to give more students a hands-on experience,” Dreher said.

He had the idea to build a trailer with stalls for 10 cows so several students could work on their skills at the same time.

“That way everybody could work at the same time at their own pace,” Dreher said.

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