Pregnancy Diagnosis in the Ewe II. Plasma Progesterone Levels
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Date
2010-06-23, 1975
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Publisher
North Dakota State University
Abstract
Description
The article concerns itself with pregnancy diagnosis in ewes and plasma progesterone levels. Shemesh et al. (1973) reported the determination of plasma progesterone levels at stages of gestation earlier than 30 days post-mating in the cow to establish the occurrence of conception. This procedure would be specially valuable in ewes where manual digital palpation is not possible. The objectives of the experiment covered in this article were: to establish plasma progesterone profiles
during the estrous cycle for ewes that conceived
and those that did not become pregnant, to establish if there were significantly different
plasma progesterone levels for single-bearing ewes versus ewes carrying more than one fetus and, finally, to determine the gestation stage in which to achieve the greatest accuracy in detecting pregnancy. Diagnosis of pregnancy later in gestation
was more accurate and required only one sample. Accuracy, by plasma progesterone analysis, of separating ewes bearing single lambs from multiple-lamb bearing ewes was too low to be practical.