How many preg check?

[Randi]

we don't. we do test the bulls. we cull dry cows at weaning.

Exactly....If a person is losing so much money by keeping a cow a few months that didnt produce a calf, maybe there are other areas on your operation that needs looked into. One cow grazing on pastures is not going to cost me any money and if by weaning she may be bred thus making me more at the sale barn. Where it matters is when you just run a bull year round. I can see some slipping through year after year if you arent careful. Or you'd have those that give you a calf every year and a half...But when you have a breeding season, when you wean you pull dry cows and sell...........pretty easy.

The thing is, some of us don't really have the option to graze cows year round. We feed 4-6 months of the year. Last year, hay was $250/ton. At over $3/day to feed a cow, that $3.50 that the vet charges to preg check a cow is pretty cheap.

On a more normal year, figure $1/day for grazing, $1.25/day for feeding... if I'm keeping a cow over winter, it's costing $150-$225 for me to feed her. Multiply that by 10-20 cows (5%-10% of my herd) and it adds up. Plus I may as well have her value in my pocket as early as I can...

 

[Randi]

Preg checking is insurance on your investment... Ask yourself how expensive it would be to not have a calf on multiple cows for 2 years.

Never had one go for 2 years. The one that we didn't catch was 5 or 6 years ago and saw the bull breeding her a day or two after we turned bulls out. She was gone the next time we made a trip to the auction.

We have figured out the numbers and we couldn't make it pencil out. I'm not sure what the cost would be to do the whole herd of 250+ cows but when we have done smaller groups (the last time we did some I think it was about 20 cows) the cost was $35/cow. Say if they gave you a rate of $20 for 250 head that would still be $5000. This past year we had 8 open cows out of 250 - 3 we sold in November (which is when they come off of pasture usually) the rest we waited till June, that way anything that lost it's calf etc could go on the same trailer load (the auction is over an hour away, so we try to make as a few trips as possible). The 5 open cows we kept over the winter didn't come close to costing what it would've to preg check the whole herd.

I'm not saying it's not a smart thing to do. Just in our situation we have never been able to make it pencil out.

Wow, you might want to find a new vet! We ultrasound all of ours about 45 says after we pull bulls. Cost is $3.90 per cow for anything under 130 head and $3.6 per cow for over 130 head. Add in travel expenses an it still comes in well under $5 per cow..

 

[cmay]

I'm not saying the way I do it is the best way. It's just what I do. Like Randi said, situations are different. We gain a little extra by selling when we do because the cow didn't just wean a calf, so she is usually mud fat. She is also probably carrying a calf at weaning so she brings even a little more.

 

[Dubcharo]

We preg check the heifers and around 10% of the cows, the ones we didn't have a breeding date or the ones who come in heat long after they are suppose to be in calf.

 

[littletom]

My wife is a and my vet it cost 4 bucks. We need to move!

 

[pdfangus]

I would add this....

Any one who is a good AI technician can learn to preg check as well. Pregnancy work is a bit more involved and rough handling early in pregnancy can cause abortion....

but it is doable....Many years ago after breeding about 400 cows a year for about four years, I went to the Graham School in Kansas for a week long course and my goal was to learn to pregnancy exam. I did and learned a lot of other stuff as well.

I did my own pregnancy work for several years after that....having the benefit of knowing when cows were bred to the day enabled me to know what I was looking for during pregnancy exam and I got fairly good at it fairly quickly....

But I never even tried to check one before 60 days....I just did not want to take the chance of disrupting a pregnancy that was worked so hard to obtain by being too eager to satisfy my own curiosity...

Having breeding dates and confirming them with my pregnancy exam....I was seldom surprised by a cow calving unexpectedly and if a cow diagnosed pregnant was mysteriously seen standing I could determine for myself what the status was....

The key to my success was having good breeding dates on almost every cow....I knew when they were in heat and knew when they were bred and to what...this was in the days before computers and I did it all from hand written records....before I ever stuck a glove in a cow I wanted to know how many days pregnant she was expected to be to know what I was looking for. then all I had to do was confirm it by palpation in the appropriate spot.

of course, I grew up in a time before synchrony when I spent hours every day sitting on a horse or in a truck just looking at cows and watching for heat signs. When my oldest son was nine or ten he used to get up at zero dark thirty because he wanted to ride out with me before school to gather cows for breeding....many a morning we had the herd brought up by good daylight so that I could get him back to the house to catch the bus. He was a better hand than the two folks who had been assigned to help me who just wanted to run the cattle all the time. I sent them back and told the boss I didn't need their help.