A Refresher on Timing for Pregnancy Checks

 

With the transition of veterinary training for confirming pregnancies from manual palpation (of uterus, ovaries and fetal arteries) to the use of “Ultrasound” video of the same organs, there has been a tendency to “speed up” the timing.

Superiority of technology often runs up against the limitations of biology.  Nothing in breeding selection or veterinary practice has changed the cow herself;  she still gestates 280 days, and goes through steps of ovulation, conception, cell division, embryo migration from fallopian tube to uterine horn, membrane enclosure, and finally fetal attachment.   This process takes six weeks (42 days),  and pregnancies are not really “guaranteed” until eight weeks (56 days)  have passed.