Maggie, our heifer

This is always the hardest part.

Vet's answer is surprising to me. Most all jerseys I have been around, gestation is shorter than holsteins and mine have never been more than a couple days late at the most. Discharge is a good sign, but I would be getting a little concerned. This is 2 weeks late. As long as the calf is alive, then that is a good sign.

Update, We have decided to call the vet to do an ultrasound .

sunnysideupfarm said:

Update, We have decided to call the vet to do an ultrasound .

Click to expand...

I hope you get good news for Maggie and her calf

Hoping for good news

I am hoping that you will just go out to check her and she will have done one of those "quickie sneak calvings" and the calf will be laying there and she will look at you with one of those " WHAT" ....... kind of looks.

At this point, ultrasound will tell you if she is bred, and if there are some problems....but if she is "that " pregnant, the calf will be "right there" and a simple physical palpation would tell you if she was pregnant and close to calving. I have "armed" a cow when I was concerned about them having maybe lost a calf, and it was time...or past time.... for her to calve. Because we run bulls with our different groups of beef cows at different pastures, once in awhile we will have a cow called pregnant, and she might slip it, and then get rebred so yes she is still pregnant, but the calf will be due later. That is one reason I asked if she could have possibly been bred by a neighbor bull....the vet would call her preg if you did a blood test, but could be pregnant to a different date than the date you had recorded. Ultrasound is very accurate as to # of days bred up to about 90-100 if the vet is well schooled in it. Sex can be determined from about 60-90 days ( I think that is the range) ; after that it is harder to pinpoint the # days bred, or the sex, but can definitely call the cow bred or open. One of our vets can palpate very well from about 32 days on up, to about 90 days then calls them something like 3 mos, 4 1/2 months or whatever. After 5 months the fetus gets down further over the pelvis and it is harder to give more than a 5-6months plus, until they are very close to calving. For me, I know when the bulls go in each place and when they come out, so know the date range the cows are due. That is what we basically need to know. For the ones I breed AI, I have a breeding date (as you did) and then they might get a 2nd chance at AI if they come back in 3 weeks later, then they go with a bull as a cleanup. So I know if they calve near the original due date, it is an AI calf, if they go over it is probably the bull all judging by the actual calving date. Plus, it isn't hard to tell a jersey calf, from one that is an angus sired one.

Find out anything yet?