Management
By W. Mark Hilton
Talk to any veterinarian who does a
significant amount of beef work, and he
or she will have stories of a group of cows
that went “0 for” at pregnancy check.
Maybe it was a group of heifers with the yearling
bull that had zero out of 12 bred, or a group
of 30 cows with a mature bull that “got them
all pregnant each of the past three years.”
My first case was just six months into practice,
when I went to sleeve a group
of 25 cows that spent almost
three months with a rented bull.
In some areas of the country, it is common
to have spring and fall calving seasons.
One of my former students knew I loved real-
life examples to use for teaching purposes
and told me about one of his clients.
The producer has a spring and a fall calving
season and always did a BSE on his bull
each spring — but skipped it in the fall.
When the first cow that walks
into the chute is open, it causes
a little angst. When it is the first
four, we start thinking, “Oh, no.”
We checked all 25 just to be sure
— and the owner told me a few
years later that he wondered at
the time if this new veterinarian
knew what he was doing —
and all were open. The owner
was upset, and I felt terrible.
What could have prevented this
and nearly every other “0 for”
disaster? A breeding soundness
examination (BSE) of the bull
ahead of the breeding season.
Every bull should have a BSE
before every breeding season.
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