The accuracy of pregnancy determination by rectal palpation at various post-breeding intervals

In the last 15 years the dairy industry has undergone some great changes. One of the areas that has changed is herd size with a continuing trend toward fewer but larger herds. Management of large dairy herds requires a specialist in this field. Increasingly, the owners of these large farms are hiring qualified personnel to manage their large investment. These managers know that if they are to exist they must do an outstanding job for the owner. They must reduce the problems and increase the profits to become a successful manager. They increase milk production to increase profits. The best method to increase production is to feed a better quality or a larger quantity of feed. To achieve increased production per cow it is necessary to maintain optimum reproductive efficiency. To achieve this the program calls for; (1) examining cow for heat following calving, (2) examining by rectal palpation to determine if any abnormality or problem occurs to prevent pregnancy, (3) breeding cow first heat period after sixty days following calving, and (4) examining by rectal palpation to determine if pregnancy has occurred. It is believed that it costs the dairy farmer between thirty cents and one dollar per day for every day a cow is open over sixty days. With this in mind an experiment was conducted to determine the earliest possible date following breeding that pregnancy could be determined with the greatest amount of accuracy.