I have often wondered how many pregnant cows I have shipped that showed a heat a long time after they were bred. Several years ago, I found a cow dripping wet from riding and being rode, on a cold January day. You could even see the steam rising from the pen when I was driving up to do chores. I saw it was an older cow, that had been a good producer, but seeing I was taking some others to the auction mart, I put her on the trailer and sold her. We were feeding cattle yet at this time, and the auction mart that I sold her at had a pen in our feedlot where they assembled cattle and shipped them out when they found homes for them. Three weeks after I had sold this cow, I saw her come off the trailer of the auction mart owner and she went back into his pen. She had been resold by someone 3 weeks after I had sold her, and she ended up coming back here by pure luck. I could see that she was starting to show signs of getting close to calving, so I asked if I could buy her back. The auction mart owner agreed and she calved a couple weeks later. The following fall, the heifer calf this cow had, was the top selling heifer in our production sale at $4800 and sold to Iowa. I wonder how many others I have done this too.
One of my donor cows, that I thought was bred to calve, cycled twice during this past winter, and I just assumed she had lost the pregnancy at some time, even though I had never seen any discharge from her. I took 3 donors to a transplant center and decided at the last minute that I might as well flush her as well seeing she was open. The vet ultrasounded the donors, and when he got to this cow, he said that she was about 7-7.5 months pregnant. She has a super CYT Pure Power bull calf on her now. I came very close to just giving her a shot of Estumate to set her up to be bred. This may not have caused her to dump the pregnancy at this stage, but I am sure it wouldn't have done any good either. I agree with Jill, in that you should never assume anything.
