Preg Checkin'

I've done several posts on working cattle, but have yet to do one on pregnancy checking.  I promised in the past and the time has come!

The men folk had planned to check part of the herd this week and the time finally came this morning.  They went out bright and early to start the work before the heat of the day.  Josh had brought the cattle up from the far back pasture last night and locked them up overnight in a pasture closer to the barn.  That way, "all" they had to do this morning was to take the four wheelers out to the closer pasture and run them the rest of the way to the barn and chute area.  Josh reported that it was a tough job despite them working in the early morning coolness and so close to where they were to end up.  The cows kept wanting to turn back around, go behind the four wheelers and back to the low lying, cooler ditch.  Anyway, they managed to get them all up to the barn in fair time, without too much stress to man or beast.

Once the cows are ran up to the barn, they are brought into the chute pen in small groups of 4-6 and then ran through the tub in those same small batches before being ran through the chute and head gate individually.  The chute pen is a small pen made up of gates.  Having the cows in the pen makes it easier to funnel them into the tub.  The tub is a smaller round pen that holds a various amount of cattle, depending on their size.  This morning, we were running up to four or six comfortably.  The tub has a moving squeeze door that comes in from behind the cows and pushes up against them to encourage them to keep moving.  At the head of the tub is a gate just big enough for cattle to go through.  This gate rises up and down: you raise it up when you want a cow to go through and then lower it to keep the rest of the cows in the tub until it's their turn to go through the chute.  The chute is a set up of gates that form a narrow lane for the cows to go through to get to the head gate or to wait in until it's their turn for the head gate.  The head gate is a specialized gate system with an opening in the front, sort of like doors, that enclose around the cow's neck area to keep them still while they are being worked on. 

To pregnancy check, we run the cows through one by one.  Once the cow is in the head gate and locked in good and tight, the guys first check her bag (her udders) to see if she currently has a calf still nursing on her.  They can tell just by looking at her bag how supple it is and, thus, if it's still being sucked on by her calf.  If it's questionable, they just try to milk her to see if anything comes out.  If she's still milking, she's still got a calf on her.  This is important to know because if she's still nursing a calf hard, she could still be pregnant but good chances are she's not very far along and the embryo is still very small and not easily felt.  The whole reason behind preg checking is to get rid of cows who are no longer fertile and/or to split the herd into already bred/still-need-to-be-bred herds.  SO, we have to be extra sure that just because Josh can't feel a calf, it doesn't mean that she's necessarily a "bad" cow, it just means she's in a different stage of development.  No one wants to get rid of a good cow!  So being sure before judging is essential.

After checking for current calf status, the men turn the cow back out to pasture if she still has a calf on her. Otherwise, she gets preg checked.  First, Josh gloves up.  He has a shoulder length latex glove that he uses.  After gloving up, he lubes up.  There is a special cow obstetrics lube that he uses on the glove to make the job easier.  Once gloved and lubed up, Loren grabs the cow's tail and Josh goes in. Pulling the cow's tail back gets it out of the way, helps to immobilize the cow to keep her still for Josh and lessens the cow's ability to use her rectum muscles.  Once inside, Josh feels around the uterus to determine whether or not there is a calf.  I've never done it, though I'm tempted.  He says its amazing because when the calf is far enough along, he can feel exactly where the head, tail, legs...everything... are!  Sometimes, he says, it's pretty hard to tell when the calves inside are so little. Then he has to feel the uterus to try to determine from it's size whether or not she feels bred. 

If the cow is pregnant, she is let go into the wide open pasture to try to figure out what all just happened.  If we think she isn't pregnant or she's not far enough along to tell for sure yet, she gets tagged to be checked again later when we go through the process again with a different part of the herd.  Then she gets let go to try to figure things out for herself and the next cow gets run through.

It might be a rough comparison, but it's pretty well what a human lady's Ob/Gyn does when she's pregnant!  Not much of a difference if you think about it... just on a much larger size scale.

Now, for pictures.  I promise they are all decent!  (By the way, the first few pictures are showing the chute setup and were taken this past March, hence the clothing!)

This is the whole set up.  The cows stay in a large group in the barn until they are run in smaller groups into the pen areas.

This is the head gate.  The doors open and close to keep the cow somewhat calm and contained until ready for it to run out.  I might be a little biased, but I think that's one mighty cute little bull calf there!

Here's the chute.  The cows walk through to the head gate one at a time.

My job is always to run the cattle from the tub and to run the gates that let them through the chute.  That's me :-)

Now, to this morning's pictures:

Like I already mentioned, the men met early in the pasture to run the cows in.  By the time they had gotten them up and just started the whole process (an hour) the kids and I joined them up at the barn.  We took them breakfast, and boy! were the kids ever excited to eat their breakfast up at the silo!

The kids' favorite spot at the silo (where the chute set up and barn are) is the terrace.  They immediately grabbed their breakfast and ran to the top of it to gobble down their yummies!

Having fun!

 After a quick bite to eat of breakfast burritos and a chug of coffee, it was back to work.

Once the cow is in the chute, Josh prepares like I explained before and does his job.  That jug there at the bottom of the picture is the jog o' lube he uses to make things, um.... glide easier.

I dubbed Josh "Doctor J" this morning, 'cept you have to say it like "DOCtah Jaaay"!

As you can imagine, the cow isn't too happy about being penned up so she's already pretty tense.  And then when she feels someone messing with her backside, she gets REAL tense.  So Josh has to pretty well use all his upper body muscles to push through the cow's tense muscles.  It's not painful for either Josh or the cow, but Josh's arm is usually pretty tired and sore after checking so many cows!

And yes, it's a dirty job!  It's amazing how clean he actually stays!  He reuses the gloves for several cows and then switches out to a fresh one when the used one is stretched and/or holey.

And to keep the kids busy while I'm doing the tub gates and the men are working, Papa Loren gave them a glove.  Clean and unused!  Who woulda thunk a shoulder length glove would provide so much entertainment? 

We finally managed to finish around 10:00, before it got too hot and while the chute set up was still in the shade of the silo.  Working with cattle gets the herd worked up and hot pretty quickly, so any extra running around and stress isn't good for the men or the cows.  Working in the cool of the day keeps everyone as stress-free and healthy as possible.  Then the fellas sat down for a quick cup of coffee before heading out to finish the morning's work.

While the men were having a few minutes of rest, the kids were busy climbing the silo.  Farm kids, I reckon!

The last thing for the kids and I to help with was to help Josh get both four wheelers back to the yard. Loren had chores to attend to, so that left me to fetch one of the four wheelers.  They were left behind the barns after the fellas had brought the cows in.  We got the four wheelers (girls on one, boys on the other), headed through the pasture and back to the yard to put everything away.

And I'd say it's a job well done!  Love our farm life :-)