Newsletter

Challenges of Aging

At our training courses, I hear the frustration and the desire to become more accurate at fetal aging constantly. It’s that time of year…time to preg-check and time to hear if your calls last year were accurate. Fetal aging can be a challenge depending on the situation. I did a course with Dr. Jerry Roush (Springmill Vet) a while back. He phrased it beautifully (and my paraphrasing will not do it justice) Successful fetal aging=a little bit of skill and a lot of client education and managing of client expectations. This is so true! It is really challenging to determine AI vs Bull bred when they are 110 days and 120 days. It’s quite simple at 50 and 60 days. But if you are not ultrasounding a set of cows until they are 4+ there is going to be a larger slide.

Stop, drop and roll... or drop, stop and send?

Our ultrasounds are very durable. But, sometimes, there are forces outside of your control. How do you know when to send in your machine? There are a couple of key indicators that mean you should get your ultrasound checked out!

Fetal Aging – Words of caution when using placentomes

Fetal aging is a great service for clients. There are many uses for this information: calving groups, sale barn sorts, a measure of bull performance, etc. Fetal aging heifers in the 35 to 85 days post-breeding window can be very accurate. As pregnancy progresses and cow size increases, there are greater challenges that affect accuracy.

In mid-gestation, it is often difficult to visualize the fetus within the ultrasound image. Large frame and older cows add to this challenge. The fetus is deep in the abdomen and cannot be reached with the extension arm and 22cm depth setting. The only “information” available for fetal aging may be placentome size. Use this information with caution. Yes, placentomes get larger as the pregnancy advances but placentome size varies with position on the uterus and other factors. The closer the placentomes are to the fetus, the larger the placentomes. See the image below. This dissection of an 80-day pregnancy is from The Visual Guide to Bovine Reproduction (formerly called the Drost Project) on the University of Florida website. The placentomes are shown here range in size from less than 1 cm to over 2 cm. If one cannot reach the fetus with the extension arm and 22cm depth setting on the ultrasound unit, it would stand to reason that the placentomes being visualized are smaller than other placentomes that will be found near the uterus (if we could see them).

Determining Fetal Sex

Fetal gender determination is all about training your eye. This video will walk you through the basics of fetal sexing.

Interesting Ovaries

Curious about ovarian structures? Check out this video of some bovine ovaries!

BECOMING A PROFICIENT ULTRASOUNDER--THE IMPORTANCE OF TRAINING YOUR EYE

Becoming a good ultrasounder is all about reading the details amidst the shades of grey. Training your eye to know what “normal” is, will be quite helpful. If you learn what a standard or normal image looks like, you will be able to determine a variation. Ultrasounding takes some effort to learn. The natural progression is pregnant/open determinationàfetal agingàfetal sexing and detailed ovarian exams. Confirming pregnancies is simple and can be learned quite quickly for most. Basic fetal aging is a natural progression shortly after pregnant/open status. Fetal sexing and advanced ovarian exams take a lot more time and number of cattle scanned to learn.

GETTING THE MOST OUT OF PREGCHECKING

Pregchecking is an important tool to manage your herd efficiently. There are multiple ways to determine the pregnancy status of an animal: wait and see, palpate, draw blood and ultrasound. As in many facets of the cattle industry, there is not a one size fits all solution. Most of us are addressing the questions, “Am I feeding open cattle?” and, “How do I determine which are my most productive animals?”. Ultrasound technology helps answer these questions.

The Importance of Training Your Eye

Becoming a good ultrasounder is all about reading the details amidst the shades of grey. Training your eye to know what “normal” is, will be quite helpful. If you learn what a standard or normal image looks like, you will be able to quickly pick up anything that is outside of that.

A great illustration of this was in a group of heifers the other day: they were all between 60 and 120 days along. We came across a fetus that appeared to be about 70 days, but something was odd. Taking a couple extra seconds to be thorough in our ultrasounding helped determine that there was not enough fluid associated with the pregnancy and there no fetal heartbeat. This, in turn, helped us determine that she was in the process of reabsorbing the pregnancy and would not carry the calf to term.

ReproScan Has Your Back -- Literally!

Safety at the Chute during Pregnancy Testing – This includes your personal safety!

Working cattle is always a challenge. This challenge should focus on quality of work rather than speed. Quality work includes accurate pregnancy testing, safe and efficient handling of the cattle and no injuries!

Sometimes the injuries are chronic in nature and only the person that wakes up the next day with a sore shoulder or back knows that the injury has occurred or that an old injury has flared up again. Let’s all be proactive and use the best communication skills, training and equipment to minimize these aches, pains and sometimes debilitating injuries.

Understanding Your Exams and Settings

Your ReproScan XTC or BoviScan Curve has several preset exams. Each one of these exams are set a for a slightly different use, but you can also adjust them on your own if you want to change your image. Pressing the exam button on the top of your machine will scroll through each different exam (A through D, or A through H, depending how many exams your machine has). To adjust an individual setting, press the menu button, then use the exam button to scroll though the menu, and the “+” and “-“ button to increase or decrease the setting. Here is a brief overview of what each exam is set up for: