At the end of the summer our health insurance company decided that it was time for me to take another physical exam and a set of screening tests.  After my required procrastination, denial and good intentions to make an appointment, my wife took over and arranged a physical exam at our local human clinic. 

Our rural small town MDs are great, a very devoted breed, and besides that, they try real hard.  But their nurses are cut from an even finer cloth.  We started with the weigh-in, blood pressure and pulse-taking before moving to a barrage of personal questions.  They wanted to know all my aches and pains, family history, past indiscretions and family skeletons.  I admit I thought I was doing really well until we discussed diet. 

I have always eaten what was served and then freely supplemented myself if I needed more.  I will admit a fondness for buttermilk pie, bread and beef, pork, anything fried, German chocolate cake, pancakes, Italian food, bratwurst, pizza, cheeseburgers and curly fries at the Burger Kitchen and my wife’s oatmeal cookies.  I drink too much coffee, enjoy cold beer and smoke the occasional cigar.  I thought it was important to be honest.  During the questioning I noticed the nurse had quit typing answers and just entered “discuss eating habits” into her lap top. 

Next came a question concerning exercise.  “Do you routinely exercise?”  Before I could answer she interjected that “work did not count, that included work at the clinic or the farm”.  Now that left me stumped.  Rural veterinary medicine is often a competitive contact sport, and even at 51 I view it as exercise and I’m tired at the end of the day.  On days off, building fence or putting siding on our barn makes me sore and must be exercise.  According to our nurse and the form she was reading, exercise could not involve my job and had to include at least thirty minutes of heart rate accelerating activity.  I know her family and they raise cattle.  I know she has helped chase loose calves.  I know that gets my heart rate and blood pressure up, but still she said “no”. 

After the doctor did his exam he recommended I start to exercise and the nurse returned with brochures and printouts on exercise programs and regimens; giving me the “I told you so” look.  As I climbed back into the truck I filed all that information in the back seat and went back to work.  I’ll confess that when I pass a jogger on our farm-to-market road I normally mumble “get a job”.  Voluntary exercise ended with school.

The whole ‘exercise’ routine went nowhere until my wife happened to speak to the nurse at church (HIPPA laws be damned), discovered the handouts in my truck, and devised a plan.  She figured we would keep my exercise program private for now and she purchased a DVD designed to improve cardiovascular health.  For a week I got up early, donned my new sweat pants and T-shirt and followed the muscled up genetic granola-crunching mutant on the DVD.  I put my elbow through the dry wall, kicked over the night stand, made the dogs bark and raised both my hands into the ceiling fan.  I never made it all the way through a single workout and soon found myself praying for an emergency call. On the sixth day I turned off the DVD and went to work, pregnancy testing 300 cows in the country.

With the drought we had been palpating cows as our producers sold cattle to ranchers up North.  Dressed in green coveralls, boots and a lubed sleeve I started the process. The first cow squeezed and dipped to the ground forcing me into a rapid deep knee bend.  The second cow lunged forward and back in rapid secession and the third cow squeezed my arm for all she was worth.  At that point I had an epiphany, and I developed a hypothesis. 

This was exercise, and as each cow came through the chute I alternated between being forced to build my biceps, flex my triceps or be squeezed into remarkable and unnamed yoga positions.  I lunged, dipped, stretched, crunched, and felt the burn.  This exercise program wasn’t led by some fitness fanatic; the cows called the shots, and on top of that it helped my mental acuity as I tried to calculate the month of pregnancy and carry on a conversation without breaking stride.  It was the total workout program for the rural fitness aficionado, building both body and brain.  I hadn’t meant to, but I lied to that nurse, I exercise nearly every day! 

I stopped at the Burger Kitchen on the way back celebrating with a bacon cheese burger and a large sweet tea.  Who could have imagined the benefits of cow palpation?  Help your veterinarian maintain his/her health, have your cows palpated and reap the rewards.

The cost to maintain a cow throughout any given year continues to climb.  When I left the animal science program at Texas A&M we were told that an open cow cost the producer $150.00 to overwinter.   The latest estimate in this drought is hovering around $600.00/year.  A cow without a calf is expensive. Pregnancy testing and aggressive culling of open cows is a simple production tool.  If you decide to keep an open cow remember the cost of maintenance and the problem with getting her back into the breeding season.  Regardless of why she is open, she will not raise a calf that year. 

Some ranches like to roll open cows into the next season. Fall calvers become spring calvers.  Sometimes this works but often one season or the other inherits the poor breeders.  Cull your open cows!  There are blood tests that can be used for pregnancy testing beef cows but you get more bang for your buck having your veterinarian test your cattle (though I do have a dog in the hunt and may be prejudiced).

Get your money’s worth.  While the veterinarian is palpating the cattle take the time to ask questions and discuss production, nutrition, health care and marketing.  Veterinarians charge by the head, the hour or through a retainer.  They can multi task and they have the knowledge that you need.  We often discuss current local animal health issues; we body condition score cattle, identify and discuss reproductive tract pathology.  Your DVM can help you select early breeders and avoid potential problem calvers.  This is a good time to discuss cross breeding, bull selection and potential marketing avenues.  Take this time to reapply ID tags and examine cattle for other reasons to cull.  This will be the least expensive consultation session in your production calendar. Take advantage of the opportunity.

Watch for my infomercial.  I am introducing a new exercise video and a line of spandex exercise bib overalls.