Best Ultrasound Machine --- How to use a ultrasound machine

Good questions..cmon Jessica 84, Countyline Acres..lets hear from you guys..Teach us some more,! I love hearing about all you are doing!

 

I chose the CONTEC CMS600P2. It was under $1k and had good reviews. I was also looking into the VIS Scanpad which has the best reviews, but it is nearly $3k.

After you determined that you aren’t holding the probe backwards, and you’ve applied an ample enough amount of gel, you put the probe in the “armpit” of their back right leg. You push in and up. You should be able to find what you’re looking for rather quickly. I normally check between 45-60 days, the kids are little “white tadpoles” in their “black” placentas.

I haven’t yet. There’s really no reason to unless you need to know the gestation. The kids will need to be much older than 60 days in order to accurately measure. I’m definitely open to trying it out some day when we don’t have so many does lol.

The next most useful thing we use it for, other than counting kids or puppies, is to check for retained kids after kidding. Open for other ideas!

 

Following for answers.

 

I think I already covered all this to just Buck Naked Boers but I’ll do it again in case someone else is interested.
First know I’ve only had mine a few weeks but I’ve pretty much played with it nonstop lol
1. Contect. I got it for a few different reasons.......I was debating on this one or the hand held one (can’t think of the name but I can look it up if anyone wants) 1. It seemed to be the one in many FB groups I’m in mentioned. I was very hesitant because I was worried it would take a rocket scientist to figure it out and I figured I could get a lot of help if I ran into a issue (have no fear it’s super easy!) 2. No bad reviews from anyone on those groups. It seemed with the hand held people either loved it or absolutely hated it and said it was a waste of money. And 3. It just seemed like it had more options, like measuring things, saved images, was able to put the animals info to go with the images. I can not say for sure though that the other does not offer that!
2. Ok so on this one once I get it on, I pick which animal I’m doing, dog, cat, pig, horse, cow or sheep. I think the animal pick is just for the gestation calculation but I’m not putting money on that just yet lol you have to shave the area, so the back arm pit and then forward some. I think depending on how far along the doe is on where exactly you scan. I hope CountryLineAcres comes along. But I did 3 month bred and I was right in front of the udder and I did 4+ and I almost got to her ribs before I spotted her kids. A lot of people who scan really early say to go in the back leg arm pit and point it towards the opposite hip to find something. I haven’t got to try short bred just yet. Anyways you put a LOT of ultrasound Gel, oh my gosh does it seem like you need a ton of that stuff! And then start scanning. Again haven’t done short bred but with those you will find the sack show up as just a black circle and depending on how far along there might be a tiny fetus. When I did the 3 month does all I could find were a ton of Cotyledons on one but I couldn’t find a kid threw that whole mess. The other one I saw cotyledons and made out I’m pretty sure 2 kids. I clearly saw ribs and a spine and I’m pretty sure I saw another’s leg.
3 I’m still working on that lol I measured a 50 day does kid whole body and it said she was 59 days along. I attempt a AI on a doe and if she did settle she’s going to be ultrasounded a LOT to try and figure that out. But on this machine you freeze the image and then click on point A and then go to point B and click and then it pops up how long it is and how far along. The issue is though with really far along kids I don’t think your going to be able to get the whole kid in one shot. There’s a app for IPhone that is $.99 and it’s supposed to be able to tell you how far along they are by measuring different things. Honestly I’m sure if one just googled they could find the info.
4. I have not, and honestly I don’t think I myself would be skilled enough to figure out what I’m looking at. It seriously just kinda looks like a bunch of fuzz in there to me. I did ultrasound my sisters dog that is knocked up, her fixed dog, and my unfixed not pregnant dog and you could totally see there was difference between the fixed and unfixed dog but heck if I know what all that was and wasn’t. I think though if one wanted to check for more then just babies you might need a more high tech machine
Anything else? I am having a total blast! I really regret not getting this a long time ago because I was worried I was going to be wasting money and couldn’t figure it out. Honestly it is SO easy and this is coming from someone electronically challenged lol one thing about the machine I have, I can see why people like the hand held idea. It is kinda a pain finding a place to put it where you can see but also where nothing is going to step on it or it fall. I need to figure out some table type thing that secures it and keeps up up. Right now I just have someone stand guard over it and have it on a plastic bin.

 

I loved ultrasounding our Doberman! I counted 5 puppies on one side, so I doubled the number and guessed 10. She ended up having 10, so I guess I counted correctly! It was so rewarding lol.

 

Question: Can all those sound waves bouncing off the fetus' hurt them if it's done too early?

 

CountryLineAcres your supposed to answer the questions but that is very cool on the dog! I didn’t count puppies, we were just trying to see if the dog was pregnant so I just saw the black sack and then something move, not like the giant nipples gave it away or anything lol (is it nipples in dogs? Teats? Whatever!)
Goats Rock I did a google search and I guess the answer is no one knows! Depending on what I clicked on it said totally safe, or it said nope ultrasounds are not safe and they all talked about how it could be linked to Autism. I do know that my daughter was my problem child even in womb lol and we ended up needing 4 ultrasounds, the first at 2 months along. There’s nothing wrong with her. I also haven’t seen anything animal wise say anything other then the shorter along the harder it is to find something. So my uneducated guess is that it is safe.

 

LOL GIRL. I was the first to answer! I snuck right in without anyone noticing...

 

Whoa! You snuck right in there didn’t you lol on this app on my phone it doesn’t open on the start of the page it just goes to where I replied or left off. Always thought that was handy but it back fired and made me look nuts instead LMBO!

 

Don’t worry! You don’t look nuts LOL. That’s something that would happen to me!

 

This is the one I bought

I chose it because it was the most cost efficient one and had good reviews.

You should shave the area where you will be ultrasounding otherwise you will not get good contact. Also, use lots of gel or rubbing alcohol. When I am ultrasounding does at 30 days bred I go in the armpit of the hind leg and angle my probe towards the opposite hip and apply pressure. The earliest I have seen a fetus was at 28 days on a goat and 24 days on a dog. It takes a lot of patience when ultrasounding that early so I would say the best time to do it would be after the 40 day mark to really get a clear picture and to get a count of how many are in there.

I have not attempted to measure with it. But I do have a good idea of fetus age just by looking at it after lots of practice.

I have done an ultrasound on myself lol I was just curious if my machine could work on me so I did my own echocardiogram and sure enough I could see each valve of my heart.

 

30-35 day ultrasound


60-70 day ultrasound


And 100 day ultrasound done by a vet

 

I've seen human ultrasounds. (I never had any on my human kids)
But various relatives etc. would send a copy in a birth type announcement. For the life of me, I never could see anything. (Still can't!) Good thing I'm not a doctor!

 

Goats Rock YES! Same for me! And with my kids I needed them to point out what was what lol that’s why it took me so long before I got brave to buy one. But it was amazingly easy. How long have I had mine? And I’m still tickled how easy it is lol still imagines are not as easy to see what is what then when your scanning. Babies move! And even then when I did my first doe, Chili, I was questioning if I was making things up or if that really was ribs and a spine but then I saw it’s little heart beating, it was so cute! It better be a little girl In there because I fell In love with that sucker right then and there lol