Pregnancy testing helps producers cull herds

By MONETTE TAYLOR | South Central Texas

June 28, 2001 -- At the recent Beef Cattle Pregnancy Testing-Palpation School held by the Texas Agricultural Extension Service of Texas A & M University, at the Experiment Station-Beeville, Dr. Gary Williams, Experiment Station Livestock Specialist, demonstrated the correct way to check for pregnancy in beef cattle.

Participants attended four sessions which included classroom introduction to diagnosis of pregnancy in beef cattle, evaluation of reproductive tracts, basic anatomy of beef cattle reproduction and a discussion of palpation techniques. There were three sessions which allowed the attendees to actually palpate live cattle.

During the initial palpation, participants were introduced to the correct way of determining pregnancy and length of pregnancy.

"This is what we're going to do. The first set of animals that we've got in here are heifers. They have not been bred. The purpose of that is to get you in the practice of being able to identify and pick-up an open reproduction tract," said Williams.

"The tracts that we're going to be dealing with in these heifers...these are some station raised heifers...they're about 15-16 months of age, and their reproductive tracts could be fairly immature and some of them may be approaching maturity.

"I want you to get used to feeling what an open tract feels like, first, so we've got eight heifers here to work on until I think everyone's feeling what they're supposed to be feeling," he said.

Over three nights, participants were able to learn the difference between an open tract and a pregnant one by the palpation of cattle in various stages of pregnancy.

"The maximum are about 75-80 days (pregnant) and the minimum could be zero or just a few days. We should have a fair amount of range, although the tendency in these cows is to breed pretty close. I won't be surprised if we have a bunch of 8-day pregnancies and a bunch of 75 day pregnancies. Hopefully, we'll have some 45-60 days," said Williams.

He demonstrated gloves to be used and the correct amount of lubricant needed.

"These heifers are fairly gentle. They've been raised here, but that doesn't mean there's not an occasion they might jump around or even one of them kick. Most cattle don't kick straight back, but some of them do," he said as he showed the correct positioning of the pipes behind the heifer's legs.

"We pipe these cattle low. People have a tendency to want to stick them back too far...that's fine, but they can still kick when you place it back to far," said Williams.

Workshops such as these are important to ranchers so that they will be able to produce more cattle for their herds and weed out the heifers who do not breed the first or...at least...the second time around. Although reproduction is not thought to be a highly heritable trait, it makes sense to remove these heifers from the herd, early, to reduce feed costs, he said.

Implementing a "high-quality" health and nutrition program, managing body condition and insuring the herd is physically sound before breeding season is a part of the yearly management program," according to information from the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, Agriculture Division.

Billy Cook, in his article "Replacement Heifer Management," said, "Research has repeatedly shown that neither age nor actual body weight is a reliable predictor of reproductive abilities..."

Palpation of your cattle is one way to help assure which are the most productive cows and which should be culled from your herd.