spotting cows bulling

solorpower

i am watching a few cows tha i want to AI as soon as possible but finding it difficult to spot them as usual.

yesterday i noticed a slight discharge from one and i know this is an indication of either comming into heat or going out?

anyone know which?
how long after/before should they be standing?


all help appreciated

pakalasa

A clear mucous is a sign that she is either bulling or will bull soon. An opaque or dull mucous means that she was bulling recently.
I have tried most of the heat dection aids with my sucklers and find a vasectomised bull with a chin-ball harness, the best of all. Second to that is a lively yearling bullock, or strong weanling with the harness.

solorpower

thanks for that, she had a slight mucos last night, it was hard to make out if it was clear or cloudy as she did not like me walking around her.
i did take the poorest yearling bull i had this year and got the vet to do a job on him, so far he is showing little interest in cows. i get a chin ball and give it a go. either that or he is gay.......

john mayo 10

You would want to be checking cows 3 times a day to spot them in heat but the best time usually is early morning or last thing before dark. It can be a right pain in the bollocks trying to catch them and then there is always repeats

solorpower

i check them twice a day,
first thing in the morning and again 6 or 7 pm,
this is the best i can manage due to work committemnts,
i will have to buy a bull in a few weeks, but i am trying to get a few pedigrees in calf to a few better type bulls then i can aford to buy.

mikeoh

I had a cow AI,d 6 weeks ago to the day she made one attempt to rise a cow this am and has given the rest of the day walking around the field bawling,nothing showing an intrest in her or visa versa has she broke out or is it just maddness..................I had another one and exactly at 3 weeks a yearling showed about 5 mins intrest in her but she was having none of it ..............do cows still have somekind of a cycle every 21 days even if in calf

pakalasa

mikeoh wrote: »

..............do cows still have somekind of a cycle every 21 days even if in calf

I reckon they do. I saw it with cows a few times. They show a very mild heat even though they are in calf.
Drive you mad some times, wouldn't it. A read some guy in the journal (aka 'Da Comic') describe it as "like detective work".

sh1tstirrer

mikeoh wrote: »

I had a cow AI,d 6 weeks ago to the day she made one attempt to rise a cow this am and has given the rest of the day walking around the field bawling,nothing showing an intrest in her or visa versa has she broke out or is it just maddness..................I had another one and exactly at 3 weeks a yearling showed about 5 mins intrest in her but she was having none of it ..............do cows still have somekind of a cycle every 21 days even if in calf

Yes they can have mild heats after going incalf. I ai'd heifers in June and have seen at least 3 of them with mild heats around 21 days after ai. The reason I didn't ai them is because they only half attempted to mount other heifers and they had very strong heats when they were ai'd. I also had a cow a few years back that got friesian ai. I left an angus bull with the cows to clean up, when the cow calved she had a friesian calf. I checked to see if there was another calf there which there was an angus bull calf that was a month premature. So the bull served the cow the cow next cycle after she went incalf to ai.

Bizzum

solorpower wrote: »

i am watching a few cows tha i want to AI as soon as possible but finding it difficult to spot them as usual.

yesterday i noticed a slight discharge from one and i know this is an indication of either comming into heat or going out

If there's blood in it your too late. The clear mucous can be seen several days before they come bulling.

reilig

I had patches on cows earlier in the year and they work well. However, the february bull calves are now well able to pick out a cow in heat. They will follow the cow for 2 days before she is in standing heat. Thankfully all of mine are served now - bar any late repeats.

pakalasa

Reilig,
If I remember right you had a lot of repeats last year. I had the same problem. This year though, I had very little. I never really got to the bottom of it. I tested for BVD this year (Enfer - ear notch), and no PI's showed up. I started to vaccinate for BVD too.
Did you ever figure out what the problem was?

reilig

pakalasa wrote: »

Reilig,
If I remember right you had a lot of repeats last year. I had the same problem. This year though, I had very little. I never really got to the bottom of it. I tested for BVD this year (Enfer - ear notch), and no PI's showed up. I started to vaccinate for BVD too.
Did you ever figure out what the problem was?

We were low on minerals last year because of the wet year in 2009. Vet tested for it. He prescribed a copper bolus for all breeding cows at the back end of last year and an all trace bolus for when we were letting them out this year. We vaccinate for BVD every year, but haven't done the enfer test yet. We were lucky, while we had a lot of repeats, we only had 2 cows out of 60 that didn't go in calf in the end. However, it did stretch out the average caving interval a bit.

Things seem to be going a lot better this year. We ai'd about 30 to BB and had only 5 or 6 repeats. We did notice a few repeats with the bull, but he is a new, young bull and he is eager, and he was really only following the suspect repeats as opposed to rising on them so I'm wondering if they really are in calf and just showing false heats?? (We have already scanned cows in calf to him so aren't too concerned about him being infertile).

pakalasa

Ya, my AI guy reckoned it was because of all the wet weather from the year before. Silage was poor as a result, therefore probably low in minerals. I went back to injecting copper before the breeding season too. I stopped when I heard it caused embyronic death. But I inject now soon after calving. I used a few 'fertility mineral buckets' too.
This year repeats back to a few - Thank God!

KatyMac

pakalasa wrote: »

I reckon they do. I saw it with cows a few times. They show a very mild heat even though they are in calf.
Drive you mad some times, wouldn't it. A read some guy in the journal (aka 'Da Comic') describe it as "like detective work".

I only recently discovered this too! Had a red cow that I reckoned wasn't in calf as I saw her rising, so was planning to cull her. Husband went out one evening and came in and told me that he thought there was something wrong with her. She had a huge heifer calf a couple of minutes later! Left the two of us looking as each other wondering what sort of farmers we were! I'm delighted as she has big calves and makes a great job of them. She's 7 years old so I'll get a couple more out of her, hopefully

what happen

KatyMac wrote: »

I only recently discovered this too! Had a red cow that I reckoned wasn't in calf as I saw her rising, so was planning to cull her. Husband went out one evening and came in and told me that he thought there was something wrong with her. She had a huge heifer calf a couple of minutes later! Left the two of us looking as each other wondering what sort of farmers we were! I'm delighted as she has big calves and makes a great job of them. She's 7 years old so I'll get a couple more out of her, hopefully

do you not do herding did you not see the cow springing putting up a bag and the cow getting very big:eek:

KatyMac

She showed not a sign until probably an hour or so before she calved. It was quick and totally unexpected. Don't think she had much in the line of milk, there certainly wasnt much of a bag. I put Volstrom into the calf 'just in case' and that nearly been the last time she has been touched, bar pour-on to keep her worm free.

mikeoh

mikeoh wrote: »

I had a cow AI,d 6 weeks ago to the day she made one attempt to rise a cow this am and has given the rest of the day walking around the field bawling,nothing showing an intrest in her or visa versa has she broke out or is it just maddness..................I had another one and exactly at 3 weeks a yearling showed about 5 mins intrest in her but she was having none of it ..............do cows still have somekind of a cycle every 21 days even if in calf

Just an update I couldnt take it any longer so I got cows scanned the cow that was trying to rise another cow but nothing was intrested in her scanned in calf and the cow the yearling was after but she wasnt having any of it scanned empty...........................Im buying a bull

dar31

mikeoh wrote: »

Just an update I couldnt take it any longer so I got cows scanned the cow that was trying to rise another cow but nothing was intrested in her scanned in calf and the cow the yearling was after but she wasnt having any of it scanned empty...........................Im buying a bull

leave it to the experts

Bizzum

mikeoh wrote: »

Im buying a bull

A lot less work alright. But.........You may still have the odd empty cow!

tomieen jones

pakalasa wrote: »

Ya, my AI guy reckoned it was because of all the wet weather from the year before. Silage was poor as a result, therefore probably low in minerals. I went back to injecting copper before the breeding season too. I stopped when I heard it caused embyronic death. But I inject now soon after calving. I used a few 'fertility mineral buckets' too.
This year repeats back to a few - Thank God!

copper causing embyronic death??? think its lack of copper causes this mate sorry ? but are you sure you got that right because im a little concerned now