What’s so special about ultrasound? Well in a nutshell, it provides earlier and more accurate diagnoses and detection than the traditional alternative, manual palpation.

What is Ultrasound?

Why is that? Because by passing an ultrasound probe into the rectum of a cow, for example, and placing it over the reproductive tract, ultrasound enables vets and farmers to effectively ‘climb inside the cow’ to look at its ovaries and uterus. With the manual testing method, you are effectively working blind, relying instead on your sense of touch and how things ‘feel’.

Let’s compare the two methods:

  • When diagnosing bovine pregnancy, embryos can be detected from around 27 days of gestation using ultrasound. With manual palpation, you would have to wait another 7 days at least.
  • Just as quick to perform as manual palpation for a skilled technician, ultrasound provides valuable additional information. Embryo viability/mortality can be detected that much earlier – at just 30 days with ultrasound, compared with 40-60 days.
  • Using ultrasound, you can also determine the sex of foetuses at around 60 days, enhancing the marketability and efficiency of your cattle operations.
  • Ultrasound is more accurate than manual palpation because the pregnancy is easier to image than it is to palpate in animals that present poorly for examination.
  • Ultrasound also enables much more accurate ageing of the foetus, particularly if, as with the Easi-scan, you have the added benefit of auto follicle measurement.
  • And because there’s no need to handle the bovine uterus during the pregnancy examination, ultrasound reduces potential damage or loss, meaning it’s safer.

Together, these ultrasound advantages enable you to make strategic management decisions with cattle that you just wouldn’t be able to using manual palpation. These translate into economic benefits, such as significantly improving farmers’ yields and financial returns.

 

 

Manual palpation

 

Ultrasound

 

Pregnancy diagnosis/
embryo detection

 

34 days

 

27 days

 

Embryo viability/mortality

 

40 – 60 days

 

30 days

 

Sex of foetus

 

N/a

 

c 60 days

 

Accuracy

 

Less accurate with
animals that present
poorly for examination

 

More accurate ageing of
the foetus, particularly with auto follicle measurement

 

Safety

 

 

Handle bovine uterus during pregnancy examination

 

No contact – so less
potential damage or loss

 

Economic

 

N/a

 

Improve yields

Boost financial returns

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