Early manual pregnancy diagnosis in dairy cattle in Kenya.

Abstract

Rectal palpations for the purpose of pregnancy diagnosis were performed on 200 dairy cows and heifers at 35, 70 and 150 days of gestation. The cardinal signs used were: membrane slip and amniotic vesicle at 35 days; membrane slip and presence of fetus at 70 days; and fetal parts, placentomes and fremitus at 150 days. Of the 200 animals that were diagnosed pregnant at 35 days, 187 (93.5%) carried their pregnancy to term. The highest fetal losses of 4% were observed between 35 and 70 days of gestation. It is concluded that pregnancy diagnosis can be performed safely by rectal examination as early as 5 weeks (35 days) in most common dairy cattle breeds of Kenya.