Sale yard Preg check results

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Dave

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Yesterday morning one of the cows had a calf. This was a cow I bought March 16. I bought 3 cows that day. One was a single and the other two sold as a pair. The single was pregged at 8 months. She calved last Friday. The pair was pregged at 7 and 8 months. I assumed it was the 8 month cow that calves. Then in the evening I was cruising through the cows checking. Standing there was #31 with a big 8 on her hip and no calf. I went looking for the cow who had calved and sure enough she has a 7 on her hip. Hmmmmmm someone missed by a bit on that one.
The first bunch of cows I bought this year was January 16. There was 13 cows. One of them calved on Wednesday. So I got to looking at my records. All of them bred 7 months except one at 6 months. The 6 month cow calved 2 weeks ago and 5 of the 7 month bred cows have yet to calf.
I bought 5 cows on March 1. All of them checked to be 7 months along. Two of them calved within a week and 2 of the others within 3 weeks.
This is all by different vets at 2 different sale barns. Not complaining just noticing their accuracy.
 
I've heard the same from a vet that @farmerjan said.
That said it stands to logic that the vets at the stockyards are not likely going to take the time to try to be real precise, like some vets will on the farm.
I've seen a couple months both ways, from our cattle at home.
Have had a vet call a few heifers open that we waited a month and had another vet check them to be 4-5 bred right along with the other ones. So the first one missed them at 3-4 months bred.
We've sold several cows through the ring that we felt should have been bred, but according to the stockyard vet they were open. Sold two awhile back at a different stockyards that we hadn't sold at for a long time. I was figuring on those two probably being open, but they were bred, kind of makes me wonder.
Had a situation a few years ago where we sold some calves in a Hereford influence sale. They have to be weaned and worked and heifers have to be open or else you have to pay the buyer $200 per head not open.
We had our yearling heifers preg checked on the farm, they were all bred but one and we. Decided since she's open to put her in that sale. Had her in a field away from the bull for well over a month after the vet called her open and had seen her in heat twice during that time, and no bulls around. I actually put our bull that was in a field next to her up in the barn to make sure he didn't go through the fence because he wanted to.
Got a call from the wheel of the Hereford influence sale the evening after the sale saying it was bred. I trust our vet and he stood behind theirs, I paid, but think there was a mistake made on their end. Have never sold at that sale since and likely won't again especially heifers.
 
It's a crap shoot for sure. Last year I bought some that were supposed to calve March, April. These were bought in January, one calved two days after I got them home, and one didn't calve until around the first of June.
 
Those ones that are born two days later you would think they would be able to tell. When the calf starts sucking on your finger that should be hint.
I really need calves to be born before the end of the month so we can brand them before turn out. Right now I am at 45 out of 62 have calved. So 17 left to go in 3 weeks. Any cows still dry come branding get kicked up on the hill behind the house. They better not have any problems calving because it isn't easy to find them up there. It also means we have to ride it to gather them at some point. Work these late calves and haul them over to the summer pasture. That takes the better part of a day. We could just take the cows to the summer pasture and let them calf out there. Not to say anything about the neighbors but a slick calf over there might not make it home.
 
Dave said:
Yesterday morning one of the cows had a calf. This was a cow I bought March 16. I bought 3 cows that day. One was a single and the other two sold as a pair. The single was pregged at 8 months. She calved last Friday. The pair was pregged at 7 and 8 months. I assumed it was the 8 month cow that calves. Then in the evening I was cruising through the cows checking. Standing there was #31 with a big 8 on her hip and no calf. I went looking for the cow who had calved and sure enough she has a 7 on her hip. Hmmmmmm someone missed by a bit on that one.
The first bunch of cows I bought this year was January 16. There was 13 cows. One of them calved on Wednesday. So I got to looking at my records. All of them bred 7 months except one at 6 months. The 6 month cow calved 2 weeks ago and 5 of the 7 month bred cows have yet to calf.
I bought 5 cows on March 1. All of them checked to be 7 months along. Two of them calved within a week and 2 of the others within 3 weeks.
This is all by different vets at 2 different sale barns. Not complaining just noticing their accuracy.
Click to expand...
Wondering if they were ultrasounded or arm detected?
 
Ky hills said:
We've sold several cows through the ring that we felt should have been bred, but according to the stockyard vet they were open.
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Not saying this applies to your cows.
I was talking with a sale barn vet about a group of cows I was interested in. If I'm really interested I usually try to talk to the vet and ask if anything about them stood out; bad acting, hard sorting, etc. The vet told me "Nope, that kind of cow always seems to comes up open"
That vet is no longer working at the sale barn.
 
SBMF 2015 said:
Not saying this applies to your cows.
I was talking with a sale barn vet about a group of cows I was interested in. If I'm really interested I usually try to talk to the vet and ask if anything about them stood out; bad acting, hard sorting, etc. The vet told me "Nope, that kind of cow always seems to comes up open"
That vet is no longer working at the sale barn.
Click to expand...
Not saying it's right, but I can see the vets point there to a point. If they have a lot of cows to check and obviously if they are thrashing around in the chute it might take more time to try accurately check them as close as possible. I'd say a lot of leeway is factored into their call depending on the vet and the animal. Although that may not be as much of an issue with the squeeze chutes they probably have to work with in most places.
As far as our cows, 90% or better are going to be as easy handling or more so than than most anybody else's. Once in awhile we'll have one that's pretty fired up. Generally on those they are destined to pounded out anyways and no need to check them.
 
Dave said:
There is one lady vet at one of the sale yards who uses ultrasound. I find her to be a lot more accurate. The others arm them.
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Our vet in SE Montana went around the world with his ultrasound machine. He was fast and very accurate. He loved it every time the chute closed...Ka Ching..it sounded like a cash register and it was. He made a lot of money doing that. Downside was he was gone a lot from his practice and he had trouble keeping good veterinarians to help him at home.
 
Ky hills said:
Not saying it's right, but I can see the vets point there to a point. If they have a lot of cows to check and obviously if they are thrashing around in the chute it might take more time to try accurately check them as close as possible. I'd say a lot of leeway is factored into their call depending on the vet and the animal. Although that may not be as much of an issue with the squeeze chutes they probably have to work with in most places.
As far as our cows, 90% or better are going to be as easy handling or more so than than most anybody else's. Once in awhile we'll have one that's pretty fired up. Generally on those they are destined to pounded out anyways and no need to check them.
Click to expand...
To the best of my knowledge the vet I work for called them how he felt them regardless of their attitude. He let the crowd decide if they should go back to the county or the packers.
We would test cows all we for a bred cow sale on Friday. Then my best friend and I sorted the sale. We made mental notes all week about which groups had headhunters in them.
 
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SBMF 2015 said:
To the best of my knowledge the vet I work for called them how he felt them regardless of their attitude. He let the crowd decide if they should go back to the county or the packers.
We would test cows all we for a bred cow sale on Friday. Then my best friend and I sorted the sale. We made mental notes all we about which groups had headhunters in them.
Click to expand...
So do they preg check all cows there even the ones that are designated as pound cows at unloading? Here they only check head cows and if they are open they get put in the pound cow pens. If you say sell as a pound cow when unloading they don't preg check.
 
Our Veterinary association has an accreditation scheme for cattle Vets pregnancy testing to ensure a high standard. Only accredited vets can apply a tail tag to a cow. A red tag denotes pregnant greater than 4 months and this is as much as you will get as far as how far pregnant she is when sold at auction. Yes, it is very much a guess to accurately age a pregnancy in the later stages.

Ken
 
Ky hills said:
So do they preg check all cows there even the ones that are designated as pound cows at unloading? Here they only check head cows and if they are open they get put in the pound cow pens. If you say sell as a pound cow when unloading they don't preg check.
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Here they ask if they're for slaughter or if to preg check.
 
BFE said:
Here they ask if they're for slaughter or if to preg check.
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Some sale barns ask, but then check regardless. If you wanted them preg checked, it gets billed to you and the information is made public to the buyer. If you say they're for slaughter, the barn has them checked at their own expense and keeps the information for themselves or a buyer they work with.
 
MurraysMutts said:
There one sale barn vet around these parts that WILL NOT call anything over 7 months.

So at 7 months they could calve tomorrow. Best to eyeball that udder and get a bit closer maybe. Idk
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As others have stated already, greater than five months can be a crapshoot. If you're really unsure, calling them 7 months is a good hedge. People rarely complain about them being earlier than called, and you're unlikely for them to be much more than a month late, which is within the acceptable margin of error for most.
 
Buck Randall said:
As others have stated already, greater than five months can be a crapshoot. If you're really unsure, calling them 7 months is a good hedge. People rarely complain about them being earlier than called, and you're unlikely for them to be much more than a month late, which is within the acceptable margin of error for most.
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They make no bones about it. It almost always announced at every one of their sales.

Good practice I think..
 

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