Teenage Pregnancy - Oh dear!!!

Saffy · Post by **Saffy** » Sat Feb 13, 2010 3:02 pm

Yes it is internally but the arm doesn't have to go quite as far in as without the scanner.

A very slight, very young female vet did my heifers.

How annoying for you, I did wonder if it could be done even with a scanner with one so young.

Stephanie

Broomcroft · Post by **Broomcroft** » Sun Feb 14, 2010 10:13 am

Has anyone tried any other sort of pregnancy test and has it worked? There's a milk test and a blood test, and someone on this board once said that the human kits worked if you held it in the heifers wee.

Marg Rawlings · Post by **Marg Rawlings** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 7:53 am

We had a 13 month old heifer calve, and we had no idea she was in calf. She was being run with the bull and within 24 hours had produced a tiny bull calf. All on her own. She did need TLC afterwards with extra feed to get her milk going. She calved down two weeks before her mother. We always wondered why she was not as well grown as the other heifers, all was explained. Her calf is now 8 months old and doing fine!

Just keep a close eye on her, at least you know what to expect. Good luck.

Know of people who have used the blood testing method for Preg Testing and got highly accurate results.

Marg

Broomcroft · Post by **Broomcroft** » Sun Feb 28, 2010 6:58 pm

Well the good news is, I haven't got a young pregnant heifer, I've got two

.

The second one is 14 months old at the moment, she also has to be more than 7 months pregnant. Her back-end is moderately wobbly and she is actually showing a good amount of udder, sort of half full, but not bulging/stiff by a long shot....she is from an exceptionally milky line.

How long do you think she has to go? i.e. when does a young heifer's udder start to fill up, I just can't remember.

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Saffy · Post by **Saffy** » Sun Feb 28, 2010 8:21 pm

I would imagine that, as with other breeds the younger they are the shorter time they will usually udder up for before they calve, so she may be quite close Clive but thay are all different!

Stephanie

Duncan MacIntyre · Post by **Duncan MacIntyre** » Sun Feb 28, 2010 9:47 pm

As Stephanie says, she is likely to be quite far on. By the time udder is becoming obvious they are usually in the last third of pregnancy, and sometimes quite close, well past the stage where prostaglandin will terminate. Some remarkably young heifers can calve, but keep a very close watch and if she cannot don't try pulling too hard before going for a caesar. The sooner the decision to caesar is made the better the outcome, and I have always found that underage heifers of any breed do recover amazingly well from a caesar but may be wrecked by too much traction for a large calf.

Duncan

Broomcroft · Post by **Broomcroft** » Sun Feb 28, 2010 10:00 pm

Thanks Duncan and Stephanie.

Broomcroft · Post by **Broomcroft** » Tue Mar 09, 2010 9:03 am

I think I've said we have two young heifers in-calf. Well first one calved yesterday and it was an Angus cross. Compared to all the other crosses we've had now, 25 in all, the calf was on the big size as well unfortunately!!! Anyhow, we did calve her normally but did have to pull a lot, but didn't need a jack. We sort of got to the stage where we were committed. Had more trouble with the hips than the head and front legs. As I've mentioned before, we find the slightly dairy types to be very easy calving indeed and this little heifer is one of those lines.

The other one, yet to calve, is from stocky line and she will definitely be a CS unless the calf seems exceptionally small, which is possible because we've had some very small calves from the Angus so far.

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Saffy · Post by **Saffy** » Tue Mar 09, 2010 9:15 am

Good news Clive - one success anyway.

Stephanie

SteveM · Post by **SteveM** » Wed Mar 10, 2010 7:27 am

We had a heifer calve on sunday at 31 months.

When born herself she was very small, and is still on the small size, due to not being able to get AI anymore we had to wait till we swapped bull to get her in calf, our old bull was too tall and heavy for her.

She is still on the small size and quite tubby. We checked her hourly on saturday night, at 4.30 am there were feet and a nose, by the time we got into overalls and back out with ropes she was stood licking the calve.

A quite small bull, but he has all his life to grow in.

A vet told my father years ago when buying calves not to go for the big one

Broomcroft · Post by **Broomcroft** » Fri Mar 26, 2010 8:28 pm

Well my little heifer calved today by CS. It is indeed an Angus cross. Normal sized calf for a cross, but too big for her to give birth. All went well. She has milk and the calf is suckling but I will help her by training the calf to take from a bottle as well because he will empty her udder at first strike! She is mothering him well.

It does make you wonder what happened in the wild before we had vets? Perhaps they just died or calves were much smaller; the latter probably.

Cost of the CS was £150, plus drugs, plus VAT.

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