Should Bison Producers Routinely Preg Check Their Bison?
Annual preg checking of beef cattle is a management practice that has become very common among North American cattle producers. The reason for this is that cattlemen can realize an economic gain by preg checking their cows in the fall of the year and culling any non-pregnant cows. Culling non-pregnant cows allows cattleman to replace the non-pregnant cows with pregnant replacements. The goal of this management procedure is to ensure that all of the cows that are carried over winter produce a calf during the next calving season. The money that is saved is in the cost of the feed that would have been fed to non-pregnant cows that do not provide any economic return for that year. The economic incentive occurs because the cost of feeding a cow over winter is large relative to the cost of a pregnant replacement or the return from a marketed weaned calf. Annual preg checking of bison cows has not become a common practice because there is little economic incentive for bison producers to routi
