– Dean Kreager, Extension Educator – Agriculture and Natural Resources, Licking County
Ultrasound is one of 3 popular methods of pregnancy checking.
With cull cow prices hitting record highs, this may be the time to pregnancy check and avoid overwintering open cows. For many, the breeding season has wrapped up and weaning time will be here soon. This is a time where a small investment in a pregnancy check can result in saving on winter feed as well as a nice check for those cows that did not get pregnant.
Overwintering open cows is not typically a profitable venture. The largest expense coming out of your pocket is the value of feed needed to get the cattle through the winter. Let’s be on the conservative side and say your hay is worth $60 per round bale and each cow eats 5 bales through the winter, that is $300. This number could easily go up to $500 with a longer time on hay or a higher quality of hay fed. This does not count for all the other expenses involved with keeping cattle. With record high feeder calf prices, the loss caused by open cows does not hurt as bad, but it is still a loss.
On the other side of the coin is the value of cull cows which continue to set new records. That 1400-pound cow at $1.60 a pound is now worth $2,240. Throw in the hay savings and you have over $2,500 income by culling now. That takes the sting out of purchasing some replacement females that are confirmed pregnant and can be selected to have a calf when you prefer.
Studies by the National Animal Health Monitoring System (NHAMS) have shown that only 20% of cow calf producers in the Eastern United States pregnancy check their cows. These studies have also shown open rates near 10% in many herds. If a person were to pregnancy check and find three open cows in the herd, they could potentially cull those, replace them with two bred cows and at the end of the next calving season have an additional $3,600 worth of calves to sell.
There are three popular methods for pregnancy checking beef cows. Rectal palpation, ultrasound, and blood testing. All just require one trip through the chute but there are differences that make some choices a better fit in some herds.
Palpation is the old standby technique. Many large animal veterinarians are very proficient with this procedure. Pregnancies can be diagnosed down to about 35 days by an experienced veterinarian. Fetal age can be determined by this method with good accuracy. The downside is that you will probably be paying a farm visit fee. If you only have a few cows to check this could be expensive but if you have a nice group this fee is not much on a per cow basis.
Ultrasonography has continued to become more popular. Equipment has become more portable, and the prices have come down significantly over the years. As with standard palpation, an experienced technician is a must. Pregnancies can be diagnosed down to 20 days in some situations. Another advantage with ultrasonography is the ability of fetal sexing beginning at about 60 days of pregnancy. This method also provides the ability to accurately age fetuses. The disadvantage falls in the cost but for some the advantages outweigh the cost.
The final common method is blood testing for pregnancy-associated glycoproteins (PAGs). This method involves drawing a blood sample from the tail vein. Most producers can do this with minimal practice. Samples can be shipped at room temperature in specified blood tubes to a variety of labs around the country. Results are typically provided within a few days. Cows need to be at least 28 days post breeding and 73 days post calving. Accuracy is 99% on calling cows open and 95% on pregnant. The cost including blood collection tubes and needle is around $5 per sample plus shipping cost. There is even an at home version of this test that has a cost of about $10 per cow and provides results in 20 minutes. The downside to this test is there is no ability to estimate fetal age or sex.
With costs of $5 to $20 for a pregnancy test it does not take long for pregnancy testing to earn money for a producer. For a 40-cow herd at $10 per cow the cost would be $400. If 10% of cows were open, there would be 4 cows that could be removed providing savings in hay for the winter of around $1,200. If proceeds from the culls were used to purchase two pregnant cows you could reduce that $1,200 hay savings to $600 but gain two feeder calves to sell the next year at an additional value of over $3,000. The value of pregnancy checking is too often overlooked.