Vet ever miss one?

[angus9259]

Had vet out preg checking. He called a couple open but I haven't seen them in heat. A month or so later I drew blood and they were bred. Could have been short enough bred when he checked them I suppose that he couldn't tell yet. But is it possible for a vet to entirely call a cow open that is say 60 days bred?

 

[dun]

Had vet out preg checking. He called a couple open but I haven't seen them in heat. A month or so later I drew blood and they were bred. Could have been short enough bred when he checked them I suppose that he couldn't tell yet. But is it possible for a vet to entirely call a cow open that is say 60 days bred?

Circumstances and the vet all play a part. Some vets aren;t thorough enough I think. If they have any doubt a little due dilegence while they are in there will usually answer the question. I was testing a dairy one day and a cow that had been called open just a couple of weeks before laid down and calved in the holding pen.

 

[angus9259]

I was testing a dairy one day and a cow that had been called open just a couple of weeks before laid down and calved in the holding pen.

Well, there's an extreme example!

My vet is TERRIBLE at days pregnant. Always calls them shorter than they are by maybe 30 days (says they are 60 when they are 90). I just get used to factoring that into the program. Can't say he's ever missed on though.... The others I had that he called open were actually open.

 

[AdamsCreek]

It's happened here too. He told me all but one of my little bunch was open. I knew they wasn't so I hauled them over to a different vet that said they were all 2 to 4 months bred. They all calved on time.

 

[Bright Raven]

I use blood tests unless there is an immediate need to determine pregnancy. In which case, he uses ultrasound.

 

[Supa Dexta]

Happens - Had a coupe 2 yrs back that ended up calving late. I usually feed the opens for a while anyways, so before I shipped them I gloved them myself and could feel a calf so just left them be.

 

[dun]

Our vet is usually whine a week one way or the other. All except Granny 1 year that he called 90 days later then she calved. He's never lived down that 90 day premature calf. A couple of years ago he called 2 maybe open but if bred very short bred. Waited 3 months and hauled them to the salebarn because if they were bred they would be too far out of the calving season. The vet at the sale barn called them 1st trimester.
Our vet was well experienced though since he worked at MARC for a couple of years in their reproduction program and taught for a while at KSU.

 

[milkmaid]

Depends on the vet/level of experience and stage of gestation.... I wouldn't miss a 60 day pregnancy on a heifer for sure, but I'd probably miss a 40 day on an old cow. I don't check many for work and most of what I do check are 160-200 days... the stage where they weigh enough to fall down into the abdomen instead of sitting on the pelvis but aren't big enough to reach on a 1600lb Holstein. (I'm a little height challenged too...) Just depends on the situation.

 

[artesianspringsfarm]

I was testing a dairy one day and a cow that had been called open just a couple of weeks before laid down and calved in the holding pen.

Well, there's an extreme example!

My vet is TERRIBLE at days pregnant. Always calls them shorter than they are by maybe 30 days (says they are 60 when they are 90). I just get used to factoring that into the program. Can't say he's ever missed on though.... The others I had that he called open were actually open.

This is the way my vet is too. He seems to get them all after 40 days but often calls them quite a bit shorter than they are, especially if its after 80 days. I chalk it up to the fact that he does probably 100 Holsteins for every 1 Angus but that's just my own hunch.

 

[angus9259]

I wouldn't miss a 60 day pregnancy on a heifer for sure, but I'd probably miss a 40 day on an old cow.

This is interesting. I had a couple open heifers and one first calver that I knew were still standing - he got them right. It was the older (7 year old) cow that came back blood test positive. I may just have to go back to the blood test but then I don't have a projected calving date. Even though my guy is always off, he's always off the same amount so if he calls a group bred at 60 days, they will be my 90 day bred ai group and the group bred 30 days will be cleanup bull. I used to draw blood twice - could do that again.

 

[cow pollinater]

It happens all the time. It's a tough deal to stick your arm in a cow one time and try to make an accurate call with no information. On dairies most of the time someone is standing there with a clipboard telling them what they're looking for and that helps tremendously.
I had a young vet in one of my herds that was wrong often enough that we were not willing to lute anything he called open. I pulled in to the sale one day and saw him checking cows and they had a couple hundred head and were slamming the through. I went and looked over the stuff he had already checked and then sat in the stands and bought about thirty head at a steep discount that, according to the vet, were going to be early spring calvers instead of the desired fall calvers. Two months later I started hauling fall calving pairs back to the sale. That deal kind of made up for having to put up with him in my dairy herds. He did get much better with time.

 

[milkmaid]

Angus- Old cows tend to have a big uterus anyway, it's been stretched multiple times, so a 30-40 day pregnancy sometimes doesn't have enough fluid yet to make one horn larger than the other. If I don't know I'm looking for a really early pregnancy I'm not likely to spend the time slipping the horns through my fingers searching for a marble sized embryo. I also don't do enough of the early ones to be really good at noticing the subtleties of a probable early pregnancy.

A heifer has a pencil sized uterus so when she gets pregnant there's a much more significant difference between the two horns of the uterus or between open and pregnant. I like beef heifers much better than old dairy cows.

 

[TexasBred]

Someone that palpates cattle often (as in daily) usually is a bit more consistent than someone like a vet that may do it once a month. At least that's been my experience. When I would palpate a lot of cattle it became so natural it was almost like having a camera in the ends of your fingers. Now that I don't do it very much I reach in and find nothing but manure most times. lolol.....Don't worry so much about being exact. If you know when a cow was with the bull usually open/bred it all you really want to know anyway. She's gonna have it when she gets ready.

 

[MRRherefords]

Our vet is usually right on. A few weeks ago however, she sent out one of her younger assistants to preg test. He called the cow pregnant at 6.5 months. One week later she delivered an 89 LBS. bull calf. :roll: For the most part though our vet is very good and usually able to feel them as soon as 40-50 days.

 

[TexasBred]

Our vet is usually right on. A few weeks ago however, she sent out one of her younger assistants to preg test. He called the cow pregnant at 6.5 months. One week later she delivered an 89 LBS. bull calf. :roll: For the most part though our vet is very good and usually able to feel them as soon as 40-50 days.

I seldom feel a calf....simply feel indicators that tell me the cow is bred and how far along she is.

 

[farmerjan]

One of our vets is off usually by about 30 days, the other was very accurate. The ones that use ultrasound are much more accurate and ultrasound is what 90% of the dairies here use. They also want to know the sex, especially the reg. herds. For our beef cattle now, we are preg checking way later than we used to since we are not always taking calves off as soon. For several of the places we run cows it is not easy to get the bulls out as soon as I want, but several places I know the exact day the bull went in and came out. I don't preg ck them less than 35 or 40 days, and have found that 60 is better; seems less likely to disupt the preg like at 35.
I want to know preg or not, and if one is alot shorter bred then he will say. If we did ultrasound and we knew that we were having 75% heifers we would probably cry.. :cry2: :cry2: ...bad enough to have 75% heifers anyway. And of the 25% that were bulls last fall, they all seemed to be on the few cows we wanted heifers from.... :cry2: :???: :bang:
I just keep saying better a live heifer than a dead bull.

 

[SIMMGAL]

Had different vets miss twins multiple times. While fetal sexing with ultrasound. :lol2:

 

[pdfangus]

you can help yourself and the vet by giving them an exact number of days you think the cow is bred....
It lets them calibrate their arm so to speak

i have a breeding spreadsheet and write down every breeding or any animal that I even suspect may be showing heat...

I check pretty heavily for about four weeks after AI to catch the ones I did not settle...after that it is less important as the bull should catch them sooner or later.

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

Had different vets miss twins multiple times. While fetal sexing with ultrasound. :lol2:

Same here! My famous "multiple twinning" cow... we took her in to sex the fetus and make sure we were not having another set of twins! Vet said it was just one, and a bull calf. She was checked at 70 days pregnant, so best time to see what they need.
Imagine our surprise when she laid down and had twin bull calves AGAIN! Now we just expect it! :lol: :nod:

 

[pdfangus]

Had different vets miss twins multiple times. While fetal sexing with ultrasound. :lol2:

Same here! My famous "multiple twinning" cow... we took her in to sex the fetus and make sure we were not having another set of twins! Vet said it was just one, and a bull calf. She was checked at 70 days pregnant, so best time to see what they need.
Imagine our surprise when she laid down and had twin bull calves AGAIN! Now we just expect it! :lol: :nod:

ultrasound is probably too up close and personal especially when zoomed in to sex the embryo....probably never even saw the second calf...

at seventy days I would not want them even palpating hard enough to determine that there were two embryos....feel something in the uterus, say pregnant and move on...