This morning started out like any other day recently, cold and frosty! Up for an early morning, we arrived at our farm in Church Hill. The cattle were demonstrating how well-insulated they are, with frost fully formed on their backs. Unfortunately, we were so busy we didn't take any pictures but I'm sure there are more cold mornings to come this winter that will provide another opportunity. We did catch a picture of #43 breathing in the cold air after our morning adventures. Looks cold - and it was!
The purpose of this morning's adventure at S&K Farm was to confirm whether Bull #45 is still doing his job. Our vet was onsite to perform pregnancy checks. Several of the heifers purchased in November 2014 were confirmed pregnant today! Three heifers are "open" - which means either they are not yet pregnant, or they are so newly pregnant the fetus can't be detected yet.
So this may lead you to ask - how do you tell if a cow is pregnant? Well, you certainly can't just ask her, so you have a few different options: rectal palpation, rectal ultrasound or chemical/blood test (drawn from under tail). The heifers worked today were checked using the palpation method. In short, this means the vet uses his/her arm to enter the rectal canal to feel through it's walls for signs of pregnancy, such as size of uterus, amount of fluid, size of "buttons" or cotyledons and size of uterine horns. The vet can determine a pregnancy from these signs as early as 45 days, and some experienced vets can tell even as early as 30 days if they are really good. Palpation also happens to be the cheapest method of pregnancy determination. Ultrasounds are becoming increasingly available and popular, but we went the old fashioned route this morning. Some breeders are using blood tests, but these are more expensive and require a wait period, instead of instant, onsite results.
You can see what this heifer thinks of the morning! Hopefully you've learned something, even it's just that we have another batch of babies growing.
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