Pregnancy Scanning

Ultrasound pregnancy scanning is 99% accurate and not only identifies if a cow/heifer is pregnant or not but also estimates the calving date. This is of particular benefit in suckler herds and where natural service has been used on dairy cows or heifers (i.e. Bull running with the dairy cows).

Pregnancy can be confirmed from 30 days of service, or 30 days after the bulls have been withdrawn. The accurate and early confirmation of pregnancy in both beef and dairy herds is essential to ensure high levels of reproductive efficiency. Confirming empty cows/heifers is just as important as this detection can give warning of fertility problems of the individual animal, the herd or of a sub-fertile bull. In addition, pregnancy scanning of clean heifers (non-breeding or immature heifers) can avoid high costs and often welfare problems from difficult calving incurred by heifers turning out pregnant when they are not expected to be pregnant, as they are supposed to be getting fattened or are too young, a problem that is becoming increasingly seen.