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| Jim, it sounds like you have a nice place that you can run your cows year round there. Nothing wrong in fence line weaning if you have a good fence. You might be shocked in the way we have to wean calves. we will bunch a group of cattle, either with temp. corrals or fixed corrals at certain points thru the valley.
If we can we will sort owners calves, load on their trucks to go home. Haul at least 10-25 miles to home, them process the calves( shots, wormer,etc.). We allways leave the cows in the last field they were paired up with their calves. Other wise they will travel back to where they last saw their calves. I seen cows travel back 10-15 miles to where they were last at.
I had to smile about your thoughts on preg. checking. I never take it for granted a cow is open or pregant. We always check them if we have them where we can do them. It's not to say that we don't let a few go without checking, say one or two out of 500-600 head. They might be late comers on a gather, or damm wild cattle, that broke out of a corral at preg. time. It's not worth it to keep a cow at home or take to the vet to preg just one or two cows. We will run them and if they come open in the spring, they will go to town.
At the dairy one time, I had a Hol. milk cow I had in the dry pen, show a heat cycle, I had cows riding her, my father in law, said sell her she's open, the vet totally missed her! I didn't sell her, I had dried her up 60 days prior to expected calving date. She had no sign of making bag. If I remember right, she calved about a week or two after the other cows riding her. It fooled me.
I know the vets I use they never miss a open cow, but every once in a while, if their is a problem cow 1,600 to 1,700 lb. Hol. cow, they can be tough to tell what is going on. You will need to preg. them a couple of times to get the real picture if preg. or not.
It also made me smile when you said your vet is usally 10 minutes late, mine are allways 1/2 hour early every time. So I plan everything 1/2 hour ahead.
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Preg Checking - lesson learned
