Field Evaluation of Milk Progesterone Kits for Determination of Pregnancy in Dairy Cows

This article covers a study where three commercially available kits results were compared to the standard RIA analysis of actual progesterone concentrations. The concentration of progesterone, a hormone, in milk can help determine if a cow is pregnant. Tests could take 2 hours to several days to determine progesterone levels. ELISA kits were quite accurate in the diagnosing of pregnancy status on 21 days after breeding. This was in agreement with the standard qualitative RIA procedures. The ELISA test can be useful in checking the accuracy of estrus detection. Factors affecting the accuracy of the tests were briefly discussed