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utra sound

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Not sure it is new to me. I used to UT pipes and industrial things and that was more like when we checked out our own kids. The only thing familiar is the picture on the monitor. Very easy to see the spine or ribs or heart or cotyledons.
 
per said:
We check our hfs at 30 days. Each to their own, these guys have a large practice and regularly check 1000 a day all fall. If you are going to put your arm in anyway it sure wouldn't be much use. These were 60 days plus.
pretesting09017.jpg
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I get it now that probe looks different than the ones I have seen. The ones I have seen are hand held probes about 6 inches long with a flexible cord attached to it so they still have to go in up to there elbow at least. This outfit looks pretty slick.

thanks for posting a picture.

this is one of those "I should have had a V8" moments

have a cold one

lazy ace
 
If you are preg checking Early or looking for other answers then definitely ultra sound. We had our recips ultra sounded but we had to take them in for that .

My vet can palpate at 26 days and confirm ,, he has three practices and they do thousands of heads a day , mostly dairy and they ultra sound alot of them.

We vaccinate the same time as preg checking and the cows are usually heavy bred by that time, so he is busy any ways. I can sure see how this would definitely help out the rancher and the vet ..

Thanks for the pics, and I am sure he had an inverter most do in their pic ups for when they semen test etc..
 
Our vet brought along a machine and checked the later ones as we were only about 40 days from bull pick up when we checked. It was an older machine with the small probe her boss takes along the newer machine. She sexed a couple for us to watch just for practice.
 
A subject dear to my heart! We started ultra-sound preg. checking in Scotland in the late 80's. The scanner they used was called vetscan and it came out of New Zealand. It was designed as an external scanner of sheep but an internal of cattle and was an expensive machine. The operator we used had a year round business scanning - dairy cows, beef and sheep. Can't comment on dairy but it revolutionised sheep management and was great for beef too. The big advantage on beef is you can identify twins accurately and with that knowedge it's real easy to manage twins successfully. With the 5% twin rate we had back there (simmy genetics) this information paid for the whole operation. It's faster than manually palpatating and less intrusive as someone said. On cows that have been AI'd then run with a bull you can tell which the calf is off by measuring the calf on the screen. We did this on the occasional one - it takes more time and the operator didn't want to do too many like that. But he always told us if they were 3 months pregnant or whatever and the order he called them in was the order they calved in. The one time I had the vet preg check here he just said pregnant or open.
I was dismayed when I moved to Canada that no-one scanned here - I told my vet that when he invested in a scanner I would have him back to preg check :) He claimed arming them was more accurate :roll: :roll: 6 years later he called me up all excited because he had bought a scanner and wanted to pregcheck for me. Unfortunately he bought the external stick scanner which can't detect twins accurately :roll: :roll:
One thing to watch is someone new to a scanner, not so critical on cows but they can make a pigs ear of checking sheep if they don't know what they are doing.
The guy we had was fantastic - he could check close to 3 sheep a minute running them through a race with him headcatching as well as scanning (under the belly). Sheep are mainly opens,1,2 or 3s with the very occasional 4 or 5. This guy would do 500 a year for us and there were usually 2 mistakes - always one marked for 3 had 2 and one marked 2 had 3. Even going at the speed he was he could pinpoint the occasional 2 where one had a weaker heartbeat and he would tell us to mark her as a 1 as she would either abort 1 or it would be born dead. Just amazing skill to watch but he would do 5-600 sheep a day for close to 3 months steady so I guess practice makes perfect.
I really hope someone gets a good scanner round here soon I've missed the technology. On Monday we will have the vet arm them as we really need to know who is open this year as we are trading a few back and forth with a friend.
 
Faster horses said:
Have you had the vet from Baker, lazy ace?
He goes all over ultrasounding. He's super fast and very good at it.
In fact, he brings the machine for preg checking too as it does
save his arm. He just doesn't sex 'em unless you pay for it.
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FH, do you know what Beck(Beck, right?) charges to ultrasound?
 
Faster horses said:
Yes, it is Dr. Beck.

He charges $5/head, he was here doing our heifers not too long ago and I asked him.
So you can take that to the bank. :p
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at $5/head i think we know who is going to the bank..... :wink:
 
I like the idea of the ultrasound machine, apparently some feedlot operations are using them themselves with great success. Sounds a bit slow to me, unless the technology get affordable enough for me to do it myself or and / or share the machine with neighbours. $5.00 per head is outrageous. The vet we use has a ridiculous hrly rate of about $180/hr plus mileage and it's far cheaper than $5 per head. If he was only checking cows he could do well over 100 per hour, but with hfrs going through with the cows (20% hfrs) he gets about 80 per hour. If we pulled our bulls and he wasn't looking for a cut off on the close ones I think he may still get 100 per hour.
Looks like that deal would sure be an arm saver though.
 
hypocritexposer said:
Dairy farmers have been using Ultra sound for quite some time, but why is the extra equipment/technology needed?

A vets arm should be just as accurate, without the added expense.
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I use ultrasound to determine the sex of the fetus
 
As I said in my post I believe identifying twins makes it pay. We went from probably 2 successful twin pregnancies ( ie getting two healthy live calves and the cow rebred because she wasn't lean as a rake at calving) to 5 per hundred cows. The cost difference you are quoting here between $3 a head and $5 a head only amounts to $200 on 100 cows. Even one extra calf will easily pay for the extra cost of scanning. It's one of those things that if you try it you won't ever go back to the old way.
 
There are several other benefits to ultrasounding. The vet saves what is left of his shoulder...a problem in my area with several of them being older ex-team ropers. That alone is a bad combination :lol: Probably the most valid reason to ultra-sound is, it's less intrusive. What is the percentage of fetal death to pregchecking? Isn't it 2-3 out of 100? It's proven there is a loss.
 
DejaVu said:
There are several other benefits to ultrasounding. The vet saves what is left of his shoulder...a problem in my area with several of them being older ex-team ropers. That alone is a bad combination :lol: Probably the most valid reason to ultra-sound is, it's less intrusive. What is the percentage of fetal death to pregchecking? Isn't it 2-3 out of 100? It's proven there is a loss.
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2-3% death loss from arming the cows.....really? :? :???:
 
DejaVu said:
There are several other benefits to ultrasounding. The vet saves what is left of his shoulder...a problem in my area with several of them being older ex-team ropers. That alone is a bad combination :lol: Probably the most valid reason to ultra-sound is, it's less intrusive. What is the percentage of fetal death to pregchecking? Isn't it 2-3 out of 100? It's proven there is a loss.
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Not according to the "experts" - I've read many times that there is no risk or loss with pregchecking. However we started with the ultrasound way back then after getting a heifer abort the day after preg checking manually. Next year we dropped checking the heifers and had a cow abort the next day. 1% loss was enough for me to change how I did things.
 
Except for checking the heifers this year, I usually don't preg check. I found it's easier, and cheaper to just look for cycling cows, and preg those certain cows to be sure they're open when the vet is here to do a health inspection when we ship calves. Since I pull bulls in mid-July, there's plenty of time to see opens come into heat. I certainly don't find them all, but the few I miss can just be sold with anything that aborts/loses a calf later.

I guess if I had a whole bunch cycling, I'd preg them, but I can't justify doing it for the few head I generally miss. This seems to work good for me with this smaller herd :D .
 
I'd say that's a good plan, WR. Less work, less cost and those cows
usually don't lie!!!!!!!

Luckily we have a good friend who
does it for us...and we trade him help for it; plus he's a great
friend who we enjoy working with. Heck, he runs his ranch and this
one as well. We really depend on him. He's so sharp and ambitious
and his wife is even better!!!!!!
 
Justin said:
DejaVu said:
There are several other benefits to ultrasounding. The vet saves what is left of his shoulder...a problem in my area with several of them being older ex-team ropers. That alone is a bad combination :lol: Probably the most valid reason to ultra-sound is, it's less intrusive. What is the percentage of fetal death to pregchecking? Isn't it 2-3 out of 100? It's proven there is a loss.
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2-3% death loss from arming the cows.....really? :? :???:
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Get a new vet.....We have ours preg checked always and have never had a cow abort or resorb because of it. I am sure this myth was started by the cheapies that refuse to check their cattle. We have had 10's of thousands safely preg checked over the years from 28 days to 6-8 months.

Preg checking at 5 dollars a head is way cheaper than feeding an open cow for 3-5 months. You watch for cycling cows? What about the ones that are open and do not cycle.

Preg checking is a must if you want to make a profit in this industry.
 

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