Lute ? again

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How effective is Dex at aborting heifers? We give 10cc to every heifer at weaning in November and then again in April before selling in May or June. Been doing this for a good while and get some strange looks from the day help sometimes. The last 2 years I've got a call from the barn that we had a bred one. We use Dex because there shouldn't be any bred and it's cheap.
 
We averted a near disaster. We typically estrumate/lutalyse at weaning to cover any accidentals. You never know what crosses the fence when on the open pasture late in the year.

This year the neighbour had some young Simmi bull calves. They were fence crawlers. So while vet was here I ran the heifer calves through thinking just in case there was a longer gestation pregnancy the estrumate would not cover we better take a look. I was thinking especially on the older purebreds. My purebreds were just fine…BUT

Had a commercial seven month old, at the very end of the group and said oh I'm not worried about her, Estrumate should have cured her. He had already set the ultrasound and said we are here anyways and then well not so fast…70 day old fetus! So she got Dex.

That was a first! And reinforced checking those babies!
 
A simple shot of a PG such as Lutelayse will probably not work on a 3 to 4 month pregnancy. It has to be administered early in pregnancy in order to work. We have twice had a heifers calve at only 13 months of age. They bulls were with these cows only 60 days and the oldest calves would be only 4 to 5 months old when bulls were pulled. We did not give lute until weaning when oldest calves would be 7 months old. By then those heifers were already 3 months pregnant and the lute failed to abort.
 
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