Preg Checking

So you may be wondering what Preg Checking is. I'm not. I know what it is. Consider yourself lucky to be ignorant.

Just a heads up, this post is maybe not my most PG, so if you're easily grossed out by things, or if you're my Grandmother, you should maybe not read this one....

In the spring after all the calves have been born, the bulls are reintroduced to the cow herd and the whole throng is turned out to pasture (oooh listen to me! Practically a natural!) for the summer, to eat, breed, and fatten up. Tis the life. Come fall, when everyone is getting ready to sell, they gather their herds back up, to, I don't know, evaluate? (maybe not quite a natural...) their stock and see who or what they want to sell. This includes preg checking, which if you haven't guessed, is checking to see who is pregnant. Then you typically sell the "empty" or "dry" ones and decide what you want to do with the preggos.

It's the process of preg checking that I want to share with you. Ladies, if you have ever been pregnant you may sympathize with these poor beasts. The veterinarian showed up in the morning in full regalia, I'm talking head-to-toe plastic covering and a shoulder length plastic gloves. Now typically, as I understand it, a vet checks a cow by palpating (feeling) for a specific vein which when enlarged indicates she is pregnant. Or if she is far enough along the vet may also feel the fetus itself. But the vet we hired has a super cool, albeit cringe inducing, portable ultrasound machine. It's basically a 3 foot long (for lack of a better word) dildo attached to a battery containing backpack. It's super interesting! And he had this special goggles that float just above his eyes that allow him to see whats going on inside, while not losing visualization of the outside world.

So basically, we round up all the cows, sort them cows from calves into a corral, which funnels into a chute, which ends in a 'squeeze' and we just start pushing them through the line, one after the other. And assembly line style, the vet inserts the giant dildo and checks to see if there is a calfer. If there is none, he spray paints a big ole' O on her back for Open, and if it is inconclusive, he sprays a dot and we have to stop her in the 'squeeze' to enable the Doc to get in behind her for manual palpation.... I'm cringing just remembering.

To be completely honest, I am not even sure which ... ahum... "entrance" the doctor used for all this... It's a little hard to tell, and one thing I learned about cows is that it doesn't matter what you're doing with them, there is going to be a lot of poop involved....

And then the cows walk off as if nothing happened!! As if this kind of thing happens to them all the time!! To a complete newbie its a disorienting whirlwind of noise, and poop, and disconcerting indifference.

So that is preg checking. I am sorry if I have marred your sensibilities. To some it's just another day on the ranch. For me it begs the question "Is this really my life now?"