Bringing home the cows, and preg testing

[L\3 Ranch]

We brought the pairs home from the lease ground on Thurseday and then preg tested on Friday. Sorted cows from calves and started weaning. Here's some pics of the two days.

Getting ready to move out HD and my sister

Movin' um down the rode and through the neighbors hay field

Sister riding my horse

Going through a gate

And another gate

Finally at the home corrals

My Great Grandfathers brand that came up for sale and we bought

Preg testing, we use BioTracking

If you can't hit the tail vein , then hit the milk vein

Little man issuing orders

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

Your sister rides a tall horse.
Is she packing iron? :???:
Explain this preg checking your doing, please.

 

[Justin]

you must be drawing blood to preg check?

 

[Whitewing]

Beautiful country out there. Thanks for the pics.

 

[L\3 Ranch]

BMR

My sister is short barely 5 foot, and she is riding my horse, who, yes, is very tall, just under 16 hands. Both her and my husband were packing iron that day, a good insurance policy, mean cows, coyotes, and snakes are out there.

The preg testing we do is called BioTracking, it is a blood test either you can do or you can have the vet come and do it.
We do it ourselves and save several hundred dollars by doing it. We try and keep our expenses down as much as possible, and this is one way we can do it. Adds more labor on our part, but we have the time for that, so we can save the extra dollars.

We draw blood from the vein the runs down their tail( or if you like me and can't hit it every time the large milk vein on their belly works really well) and put it in a vac. tube, we then mail it to the BioTracking company and they let us know within a day of them recieveing it which cows are bred and which ones aren't. They are working on a test that should be able to be used chute side, and then we wouldn't have to send the samples in. It would almost work like an EPT from what I understand.

We don't have the best of setups, but it is still fairly fast. If one had a palp cage it would work a lot smoother I think.

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

Thanks for the answer.

The little guy sure is cute.

 

[RBT]

Nice pictures! If you don't my asking, what does it cost to have the blood test done? RBT

 

[L\3 Ranch]

Nice pictures! If you don't my asking, what does it cost to have the blood test done? RBT

Not at all

The test itself is $2.40

We like to know the total cost of doing this so we figured it up.

$5.00 for shipping to the company, for us that works to .25/cow

We then ordered a box of 100 vac tubes, 100 needles and 3 needle holders all for $47.60 works out to $.47/needle/tube/cow

So total cost for us is $3.12 per cow

The other cool thing a forgot to mention was you can do this test 30 days post breeding.

Here is a link to their website for anyone who wants more info.
http://www.biotracking.com/

 

[Triangle Bar]

Nice photos. Yep, packin' iron is good insurance for both 2 & 4 legged predators.

How accurate are their blood tests? do you re-test the one's that test open? and if so, ever have any test bred the 2nd time around?

 

[Cal]

Enjoy the Little Guy, they're so much fun at that age and grow up so fast! Did Pine Beetles kill all of those trees?

 

[mn]

we tried the blood testing for the first time this year also. I had some that I had a hard time getting blood from the tail, where did you go under the cow to get blood? Biotracking claims 95% accurate.

 

[mn]

we tried the blood testing for the first time this year also. I had some that I had a hard time getting blood from the tail, where did you go under the cow to get blood? Biotracking claims 95% accurate.

 

[leanin' H]

Great bunch of pictures! Welcome by the way! Hope you'll keep posting as your countrty is sure pretty. If ya slid your chute up about three feet, you could build ya a homemade palp set-up. If your handy, folks won't know the difference. I'm not handy but mine works swell. :wink: Makes it easier to palp or AI

 

[L\3 Ranch]

we tried the blood testing for the first time this year also. I had some that I had a hard time getting blood from the tail, where did you go under the cow to get blood? Biotracking claims 95% accurate

mn - I had a terrible time this year trying to get blood from the tail. I went down to the big milk vein that is one their belly, it runs down the side to middle of their belly straight back to their udder. Its usually nice and big , you can usually see it if not run your hand under their belly and you can feel it. , Just be careful not to get kicked.

Enjoy the Little Guy, they're so much fun at that age and grow up so fast! Did Pine Beetles kill all of those trees?

Cal - We are enjoying the Little Guy, he is 19 months old and we have another one that is 2 months old, so we will have some good help in the years to come. No the pine beetles didn't get those trees, the fire we had up here last year did. I'm sure the pine beetles won't be far behind now.
We went to get some firewood afew months ago, and where we went is just infested with them. Alot of western Mt and ID is just covered with them. Really sad to see.