Yes, We Bleeped The Word 'Uterus'

Some listeners may have noticed Friday when we bleeped a series of words in a piece on the dairy industry by Anna King of the Northwest News Network. The story was about farmers taking advantage of record prices for dairy and beef.

The bleeping quote came from Dean Hibbs, a dairyman in eastern Washington, who told King about looking for “hot cows,” or those in heat.

Hibbs: “So then I put my hand in her [bleep] – you’re probably not going to put this on the radio – and then the tricky part is threading the AI gun through her [bleep] because you have to get it past the [bleep]. And then deposit it in her [bleep]. Piece of cake. Done deal.”

On Twitter, listener Pamela Pouley wrote, “Oh for ‘cowing’ out loud! Are we that far away from our farm roots? Equivalent to covering ears and going, la la la!”

So we asked King to explain and it turns out that, no, she doesn’t think you’re all prudes.

“My editor and I decided to do this for effect,” she wrote by email. “Dean Hibbs is totally a professional and wasn’t profane at all. He was just saying parts of cows that when said altogether were a little squirm-worthy.

“For the record, my editor Kate Concannon is a former midwife, and I’ve been through vet training courses as a student. So we’re both OK with animal anatomy words. But to keep the listener with me on this important business story, and keep the kids in the car from going 'ewww,' we gave a wink to the audience and bleeped those terms.”

For the less squeamish among you, here’s what Hibbs said, uncensored: “So then I put my hand in her rectum – you’re probably not going to put this on the radio – and then the tricky part is threading the AI gun through her vagina, because you have to get it past the cervix. And then deposit it in her uterus. Piece of cake. Done deal.”