THE VET WAS WRONG

[BRAFORDMAN]

I have mention I had 16 open cows out of about 50 head. BUlls were with them from march until the day the vet checked.
Well I sold half the herd in November, because we did not bail enough hay to feed them plus horses and donkies.

The extreme temperatures we had this summer delayed the cutting. We had one cutting instead of 2 or 3.

I kept half of the herd. I did not keep based on what was "open" I kept based on production.These cows weaned 600 pound calves as 1st calvers.

We sold our older cows and "started over" with 1st calvers last year and a herd of 2nd calvers we had.


I saw some of my cows that went through the sale and a few that he had marked open were actually 3-5 months bred.

I just had a calf born today from a cow that he said was due in july. Being due in July means that the cow was bred right before the vet checked her. How he confused 1 week bred with 6 months bred I do not know.

I kept 5 "open cows" 3 of which had babies on them when the vet checked them.Their sisters calved earlier and weaned big calves. i just took the 3 calves they had on them off and they are a pretty good size for being born in the summer. He said they were open, but I do not know anymore. To be safe I turned the my black angus bull back with them in december and took him out at the end of the year. The 5 are hereford so that will give me some black baldies.

I had never used this vet before or pregnancy checked our cows. I decided to have them checked in October since we were switiching from calving year around to calving december through march. Our vet's clinic is closed on saturdays and we do not live at the farm. The weekend was the only time we could get 50 cows checked.

We have had 9 calves in two weeks. I will not be surprised if we are finished calving next week. Of the cows we kept the majority were said to be due in march, but they are bagging up now.

We had never had any trouble with the way we raise our cattle. How many of the cows we sold were open? I do not know because i did not stay to see them sell. The only thing that will change is that we are going to start vaccinating our cows. I am putting a registered herd of polled brahman and polled nelore together so every cow commercial or not must be vaccinated.

I am glad I kept based on production and not what this vet said was "open".
I WILL NEVER USE THIS VET AGAIN

 

[plumber_greg]

Maybe the vet had some trouble with the preg check, but without an ultrasound it's gonna take a pretty good man to tell if a cow was bred the week before he checked them. Next time pull your bulls and give the vet couple of months, will stop a lot of bred cows being called open, and a lot of open cows being called bred. A lot of things can happen the first couple of months. gs

 

[BRAFORDMAN]

Maybe the vet had some trouble with the preg check, but without an ultrasound it's gonna take a pretty good man to tell if a cow was bred the week before he checked them. Next time pull your bulls and give the vet couple of months, will stop a lot of bred cows being called open, and a lot of open cows being called bred. A lot of things can happen the first couple of months. gs

They were all palpated. And with the cows bagging up and calving now means they were bred in march and april. He palpated them at my farm in October. Me and my dad worked the pen and I watched him check every cow.
BUlls have no where to go during the year. They stay until right before cows stat calving.

The one week bred cow was actually 6 months bred. He said she was due in July and she calved today making him 6 months off on her. January vs. July. That is a big difference

Bulls had to have bred cows in march and april. 6 months bred should not be confused with 1 week to a month. In october the bulls just grazed with the cows not breed them.

 

[TexasBred]

No excuse for him to miss a cow that far long in pregnancy. Get a new vet or learn to palpate. At 6 months bred you should be able to reach in and dribble them like a basketball.

 

[BRAFORDMAN]

No excuse for him to miss a cow that far long in pregnancy. Get a new vet or learn to palpate. At 6 months bred you should be able to reach in and dribble them like a basketball.

Exactly. I only used him becuase our regular vet did not work on weekends. I will use someone else or palpate a different time where i can use our regular vet during the week.

 

[cow pollinater]

ouch...
Please at least do his future customers a favor and call him and tell him how far off he was... Hopefully he'll put in some extra schoolwork and start getting it right.

 

[BRAFORDMAN]

ouch...
Please at least do his future customers a favor and call him and tell him how far off he was... Hopefully he'll put in some extra schoolwork and start getting it right.

I will and he is an older guy he is suppose to have been doing this along time.

If i would have sold based on what he said was open or late bred i would have been screwed. BEcause a few of my best cows were said to be open and they just calved.

 

[kenny thomas]

Learn how to preg check them yourself while you are young. Even try a few and see what it is like. Try some that you are sure are bred and then some you are sure are open. Will help you a lot in understanding.
I am not good but I only do it for myself. I can tell whether a trade cow needs to go in the head pen or the wt pen and many times that is all I need to know.

 

[farmwriter]

Learn how to preg check them yourself while you are young. Even try a few and see what it is like. Try some that you are sure are bred and then some you are sure are open. Will help you a lot in understanding.
I am not good but I only do it for myself. I can tell whether a trade cow needs to go in the head pen or the wt pen and many times that is all I need to know.

Never heard those terms. Is that bred vs. open or something else? Pardon the ignorance.

 

[Angus Cowman]

Learn how to preg check them yourself while you are young. Even try a few and see what it is like. Try some that you are sure are bred and then some you are sure are open. Will help you a lot in understanding.
I am not good but I only do it for myself. I can tell whether a trade cow needs to go in the head pen or the wt pen and many times that is all I need to know.

Never heard those terms. Is that bred vs. open or something else? Pardon the ignorance.

KT is referring to is when he sells the cows and if they need to be sold by the lb or sold by the head as a bred cow

 

[farmwriter]

Ah, that makes sense. Weight is the only thing I've ever seen wt used for, but you never know if you don't ask. Thx for clarifying.

 

[kenny thomas]

I should have explained better, sorry.
I buy a lot of cows off the farm and retrade them. Many are older people wanting to quit or some just need a little extra money. I take them home, preg check and age them and if they match what I need I have some of them already sold to people I buy cows for. The ones that do not match goes to the stockyard as either a bred cow or to slaughter. If she is not bred I save the cost of preg check from the vet at the stockyard and they need to be in the slaughter pen anyway.

Hope this helps.

 

[tsmaxx47]

Learn how to preg check them yourself while you are young. Even try a few and see what it is like. Try some that you are sure are bred and then some you are sure are open. Will help you a lot in understanding.
I am not good but I only do it for myself. I can tell whether a trade cow needs to go in the head pen or the wt pen and many times that is all I need to know.

there's palpation clinics at almost every state university for a reasonable price - about $400 or thereabouts the last time i checked. i don't know what the vet charges, but you do 50 of your own and pick up some local work it might pay you to take the class. most of the classes are run in conjunction with AI clinics. your local extention agent can help you out...

 

[plumber_greg]

If they were that far along, bradfordman, then I agree, find a new vet. KT is right, I don't do it myself anymore, but preg checking a six month along cow really isn't very hard. If you know what to feel for you can actually feel the developing calf. gs

 

[dun]

Was this the same vet that didn;t find the CIDR that had been left in for 5 months?

 

[BRAFORDMAN]

Was this the same vet that didn;t find the CIDR that had been left in for 5 months?

Yes it was.

 

[showing71]

That would not make me a very happy person. If I were you, I'd learn to preg check myself. I have a friend with a really good vet who taught her how to check. He'd go in and preg check first, told her what he felt and where it was, and she would go in after him and feel for the same things. If your usual vet is willing, and has enough time, you could ask him/her to help you learn.

 

[BRAFORDMAN]

I will check into it for the summer. I want to be a vet, so this would be good experience for me.

Hopefully my cows finish calving in the next week or two. Then they will be able to breed on time in March and my timed off season will officially start. I was worried about the snow, but the cows were smart enough to calve in the shelter of the trees and not out in the open. Cows do not see snow often in east texas. And we got a bad snow storm last year. About a foot a snow. None of my cows had ever seen snow. 2 years of snow in a row.

 

[KNERSIE]

I'm probably a bit synical, but given the past threads I can't help but wonder if this isn't another case of the "world is wrong and I am right"?

 

[I luv herfrds]

Ouch!

Heard about a vet years ago preg tested some heifers for some friends. They shipped all the "open" ones and kept the ones he said were "bred".

All the bred heifers were open.