Palpating

[Gate Opener]

Had someone out to palpate a couple of months ago. She did real good on the short bred cows that were around 30-45 days. She had some of the longer bred cows calving a month or so ago and they are not even showing signs. Had one cow at 8 months when she was actually only 5 months along. There were 2 cows that were 7 months bred she put at 7 1/2 so she was close on those.

I saw the bull with some of the cows but not all so I wanted to get them palpated to find out how far along they were and if any weren't bred.

How can a person be so close on the short bred and not on the longer bred? When palpating do you go by the position of the calf or the size?

 

[KNERSIE]

I am no expert, but I do my own preg checking.

It's much easier to determine at 6-8 weeks and since the timeframe where the one horn of the uterus feels like a big banana isn't very long, hence the higher accuracy.

The next stage its very hard to distinguish between the foetus and a full bladder especially if you don't do it regularly and mistakes are often made then.

After that the cervix slips over the pelvic rim and then it's even more dificult to determine how far along the cow is although you shouldn't then make mistakes on whether she is bred or not. Then its simply a case of feeling for size and guessing according to that. Age of cow, nutrition, genetics and simply how roomy the cow is can make this a very imprecise science

 

[dun]

Basicly it's done by size. But even the best are still prone to error, sometimes a lot of error. One year our vet who palpates thousands of cow a year hit within a week of the actual breeding date on every cow. This year he was off by a month or more on most of them. Preg checking is the single thing that I the most complaints about concerning vets. A while back the vet checked a cow (different vet) and called her open, 2 weeks later she calved in the holding pen getting ready to go into the parlor to be milked.
It's as much voodoo as it is anything else.

 

[bigbull338]

they go by the size of the calves foot an leg.but i dont hold a vets feet to the fire on palpating them that close to calving.but i do want to know that the cows are bred if i have them palpated.