Ultrasound Pregnancy Check

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jfranseen

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We AI all our cows once. Then we wait a week and put a clean up bull in with them. If you have a vet ultrasound preg check them can they tell which bull the cow is bred to? How about sex the calves? The cattle are AI bred to calve mid-March.
 
They will definitely be able to tell the sex and if who ever is reading the ultra sound is good they should be able to tell you how far along they are thus enabling you to determine the sire. However if the cow calves within a few weeks of AI or exposure due dates you will still need to DNA the calf..

Call your vet and ask him/her how accurate they are and what you can expect, after all it is not cheap to ultrasound everything..
 
Thanks for the reply. We are only ultrasounding sale cattle. If they are AI bred it should add value. In theory.
 
Your welcome.

I have been to quite a few seed stock sales where they don't ultrasound but list AI dates and bull exposure dates, the cows that were AI'd to a really popular bull always sold well , and you don't even know if it took until the cow calves. I think if you can guarantee a definitive sire and sex you should do well with your sale cattle because the buyer knows for sure what they are getting. BUT you will have to have some kind of clause or guarantee..

Good luck with your sale lets hope the market picks up by then..
 
Sex can only be determined between about 60 and 120 days of pregnancy; after that the fetus gets too large, falls over the pelvic rim, and is too big to manipulate (have to turn the calf around and get the ultrasound probe over the calf's underside). I don't put a lot of stock in sexing by ultrasound... last one my vet called a heifer turned out to be a bull, and he's one of the best repro vets out there.

I wouldn't think the vet could accurately age them at 7-8 months; even by palpating it's hard to determine exactly how many days along once they're in the third trimester. Don't waste your money.
 
I agree with MM. If you wanted to confirm AI vs. Natural they should have been palpated (by an extremely experienced vet) or ultrasounded (still need a pretty competant tech even for ultrasound) around 60-80 days after AI. At this stage there will be a significant difference in those 60 day AI pregs vs the 39 day nat. pregs. If you wait much later than 80 days there can be some confusion between slow growing AI or fast growing nat. calves. The problem with checking this early is that, as already stated it takes a very skilled tech, and there will still be a percentage of these pregnancies that will not go to term.

As far as sexing, MM is dead on 60-120 days. Some will even tighten that window to 75-100 days for the highest accuracy.
 
I do the blood pregnancy test 30 days after AI. This give a very accurate reading as to whether pregnant or not to AI bull. I then have vet check entire herd at end of calving season. There will be a couple that the vet says not as far a long as they would have been with the AI. I've had several over the years that calved when the Blood test indicated and others that I assume aborted early and got rebred.
 
As stated by MM & others, at 7-8 months preg, they can only tell you if they are pregnant.
Cannot tell sex or determine AI vs bull with only 1 week in between. And, even at early check with ultrasound, with only 1 week difference, may not be able to tell AI (although you would expect 3 weeks difference due to cycle timing).
 

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