Ultra Sounding

What is the best time to get cows ultra sounded for the sex of the calf? My vet says 65-85 days, Any opinions?

He's correct.  Before that time, can tell if preg. but can't accurately tell sex, after 90 days the embryo falls over the pelvic floor.

They are correct. If they get much bigger than that, they are hard to "manipulate position" to see in between the hind legs!

I wasnt sure if the 85 days would be to far or not, last year we did it at 53-71 and worked pretty good.

just talked about that at my on farm internship today, 55-85 days he says

My ultrasound tech has been able to tell sex on some cows that were 94-96 days.  It just depends on whether the fetus has dropped or not.  Also, he has been able to tell sex on a few that were 56 days.  I would go with what your vet says but realize that the window may be a little wider.

I have been a vet tech for over 11 yrs. and one of the vets and I started ultrasounding for sex a few years ago.  We checked cows from 60-90 days.  We found that 70-75 day pregnancies were the easiest to call due to the size of the calf.  At 90 days and older the calves were usually starting to get too big to get a picture on ultrasound of everything you needed to see.

What does everyone elses vets charge? Ours charge $40-70 depending on number of animals. He also charges a whopping $275 for cosmetic dehorning, and they look like $hit afterwards, along with an occasional 6 inch incision down the side of the face.

BCCC said:

What does everyone elses vets charge? Ours charge $40-70 depending on number of animals. He also charges a whopping $275 for cosmetic dehorning, and they look like $hit afterwards, along with an occasional 6 inch incision down the side of the face.

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Had a vet that charged 90 a head and would reduce the price if you had more to do. My regular vet only charges $100 for cosmetic dehorning but they look good. Rare occasion we have had some regrowth come through. Our vet is pretty perticular about the incision etc. He is usually pretty minimal. I have them done young as to minimize stress. He also loads them up on sedatives and anthestic they usually don't know what hit them.
Sorry to hear about your sh^*@ dehorning. ;D

OH Breeder said:

BCCC said:

What does everyone elses vets charge? Ours charge $40-70 depending on number of animals. He also charges a whopping $275 for cosmetic dehorning, and they look like $hit afterwards, along with an occasional 6 inch incision down the side of the face.

Click to expand...

Had a vet that charged 90 a head and would reduce the price if you had more to do. My regular vet only charges $100 for cosmetic dehorning but they look good. Rare occasion we have had some regrowth come through. Our vet is pretty perticular about the incision etc. He is usually pretty minimal. I have them done young as to minimize stress. He also loads them up on sedatives and anthestic they usually don't know what hit them.
Sorry to hear about your sh^*@ dehorning. ;D

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I have only had 5 head dehorned cosmetically. The first 4 I took the vet had never done it before, the main vet did one side to show him how and left, amazingly all four of those heifers look great and still havent had any regrowth(almost 3 years) The most recent two look like crap, and the one still has a nice scar down the side of her face, he used about 4 foot string to sew her back up.

what is so wrong about dehorning paste?  it's so easy to do for a small number of calves.

My vet charges $45 for cosmetic dehorning and does a beautiful job.  He did a scurred calf for me a couple of weeks ago and charged $20.  Hardly ever have any to dehorn since most of mine are polled.

knabe said:

what is so wrong about dehorning paste?  it's so easy to do for a small number of calves.

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Would work if I could remember where I put it when I need it! I just picked up some more a couple days ago, I'll put it in the fridge that way I always know where its at.

it works on monobrow's

BCCC said:

knabe said:

what is so wrong about dehorning paste?  it's so easy to do for a small number of calves.

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Would work if I could remember where I put it when I need it! I just picked up some more a couple days ago, I'll put it in the fridge that way I always know where its at.

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if you got Dr. Naylor's, I don't think you want to put it the fridge, unless you don't care if it works or not.

I had a guy ultrasound last August that could preg test as low as 26 days. He said he preferred to sex from 55 to 70 days. Outside of this window, he said he had to manipulate the fetus more and there was more chance of injury that could lead to abortion. His guy was quite amazing as all he does is ultrasound cows and heifers( mostly in dairy herds) in his vet practice, and he has done nothing else for the past 15 years. I had some very short bred heifers and on some of them he would say something like  ..." 29 days pregnant, no I am going to say 28 days pregnant". I had him do 88 head. of the ones that have calved so far, he is batting 100% on sex and he was wrong on 2 cows. One was a recip and he said she was bred 1 cycle later than when the embryo was implanted. The other was a cow that he said was bred later than the date I had ( she had twins so he probably only ultrasounded one fetus).

Most people who ultrasound can identify pregnancy at 30 days or slightly below - the age reported is based on the size of the embryo  (which at 30 days is about 12 mm). Most veterinarians who ultrasound for pregnancy recommend rechecking early pregnancies after 60 days or so because that is the primary time of embryo loss. With beef cows (and luck - fetus in the right position, cow calm, etc) you may be able to sex them up to 110 days, although the "best window" is 60 to 80 days. You are looking for the genital tubercle which generally appears around 55 days. Sometimes you can't sex them because you simply can't see what you need to see

I had our cows preg checked using ultra sound this year for the first time.    So far our vet is 100% right on sex and age.  We had him check every female that was  60-100 days bred.  He said he couldn't see one of them very well that was 77 days but he thought it was heifer.  Sure enough we got a nice  Hannibal heifer out of our white SonnyXCharmer cow.  We were very pleased with our first experience with this technology---well, exept we had too many bull calves this year.  Ha, Ha!!