Dairy and cattle farmers rely on the reproductive schedules of their herds to attempt to increase the production of milk and, eventually, profitability. The current method of determining the pregnancy status of cows is either by rectal palpation, ultrasound or through assays performed on blood plasmid or milk. These tests can be expensive and have a degree of uncertainty, in addition to having a time delay. The goal of our research is to create a more convenient and less costly method of evaluating bovine pregnancy status. Samples of urine from pregnant and non-pregnant dairy cows were analyzed using both LC/MS and TLC in hopes of finding a potential marker(s) for pregnancy. Precipitation tests of urine alcohol mixtures were also performed to qualitatively assess the turbidity of the solutions as previous work indicated a possible correlation of precipitate formation with pregnancy status.

Identification of bovine pregnancy markers in urine samples

249th National Meeting (2015)

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