Bovine Services
Bull Health
· Veterinary Bull Breeding Soundness Examination (VBBSE)
· Morphology
· Custom Semen Collection
· Insurance Examinations
· Venereal disease surveillance
Heifer/Cow Management & Pregnancy Diagnosis
· Ultrasound and manual
· Foetal ageing to aid in herd management.
· Fertility investigations and disease sampling
Breeding Programs
· Oestrous Synchronisation Protocols
· Fixed Time AI programs - frozen or chilled
Production System Analysis
· Production calendars
· Production benchmarking
· Nutritional advice
· Breeder management
· Weaner management
General Herd Health
· Vaccination programs
· Anti-parasitic drugs
· Calvings
· BioCheck - Biosecurity Plans
· Disease or ill thrift investigations
Pregnancy Testing / PregCheck (NCPD)
About the PREGCHECK™ AccredPREGCHECK is An accreditation program of the Australian Cattle Veterinarians, and is a nationally recognised scheme for the accountable identification and certification of individual cattle pregnancy status as diagnosed by an accredited Australian Cattle Veterinarians. This provides producers with the assurance that their cattle are being pregnancy tested by highly qualified and regulated professionals.
The art of determining the pregnancy status of cattle has developed from a simple “yes/no” test to the current management tool providing foetal ageing and the identification of herd reproductive abnormalities. PREGCHECK™ is an accountable and quality scheme with the power to deal with unsatisfactory levels of performance by accredited veterinarians. It seeks to promote excellence in cattle pregnancy testing skills, by way of peer-based assessment and the provision of up-to-date educational material.
PREGCHECK™’s digital dashboard enables accredited vets to assign a pregnancy result to a females NLIS tag. This is done crush side during pregnancy testing, which subsequently enables certification of individual cattle. The PREGCHECK™ certificate is stored at www.pregcheck.com.au and producers are able to search for individual certificate numbers to ensure that the PREGCHECK™ certificate associated with sale lots is current and valid, providing producers with an additional level of assurance.
Some PREGCHECK™ accredited veterinarians may choose to apply a tail tag that identifies the pregnancy testing result, in addition to provision of a certificate. The three most common tags are red indicating over four months pregnant (O4), blue indicating under four months (U4), and green indicating not detectably pregnant (NDP). Each tag bears a serial number and a veterinarian identification code.
Producers are able to advertise their cattle have been pregnancy tested by a PREGCHECK™ accredited vet on AuctionsPlus, Australia’s most trusted online Agriculture platform. With PREGCHECK™ certification, buyers can be assured that the cattle they are purchasing have been accurately tested for pregnancy, while sellers can command a premium price for cattle that have been certified by PREGCHECK™ accredited vets.
Bull Testing / BullCheck (VBBSE)
About the BULLCHECK™ Accreditation Scheme
The standardised BULLCHECK™ Veterinary Bull Breeding Soundness Evaluation uses prescribed assessments and summarises the result into five fertility components. If a bull meets all the minimum standards at all levels of the BULLCHECK™ , it has a high probability of being fertile.
In common law, a bull sold as a breeding bull should be able to breed (Supreme Court of NSW, Decision), so it is very important that as many as possible of the components of fertility are met in the BULLCHECK™. A pass on BULLCHECK™ is not an express guarantee, but rather an indication of the potential breeding value of the bull in a normal mating situation.
A full BULLCHECK™ of an animal includes identification, history (including vaccinations) plus five key components, namely:
- A general physical examination including structure (conformation) and upper reproductive tract
- An examination of the testes and measurement of scrotal size
- A serving assessment to evaluate libido and mating ability
- Collection and assessment of a semen sample
- Laboratory examination of sperm morphology.
The ACV recommends all five components be used for higher value bulls which may need to be used for single sire mating, or with heavier mating loads under more intensive conditions. Both the vendor and buyer can decide which fertility components they require their bulls to pass to meet their objectives during a transaction.
