another prolapse topic

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Hippie Rancher

Hippie Rancher

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Border patrol agent stopped by the other day to tell me he saw a prolapsed cow 'down by the powerlines" (uh, that covers about 30 linear miles at least, on this place, seeing as how there are three major and several minor lines through here, but thanks I guess - first time any of them even tried to be useful to me)

She came in a couple days later really fly-blown and stinky. (vaginal, obviously) I cleaned her up as best I could and stuffed it back in, took a stitch and gave her some of the PenG I had left from the dogie. Next day she popped it back out under the stitch so I tied her head up and cleaned it again, replaced and put in another stitch. She seemed to keep it in most of the day yesterday, but last night when she was laying down it looked like it was out, though still "retained" behind the stitches.

This morning it is still bulging and I know I need to shove it back in and take a deeper stitch.
Anybody seen that happen before? I haven't had too many, but other than one I just couldn't get back into a REALLY mean fighting cow, they have always stayed once I got a stitch in.

oh and that Dr Bruener"s prolapse "needle" thingy ROCKS compared to curved carpet needles!!!

She is just so dang loose and floppy I guess.
 
As long as you make it tight, use umbilical tape, and only leave enough room for them to pee it should work. Too loose or not long enough tends to fail. Just don't forget to either remove the stitch or cull before breeding unless you really hate your bull.
 
I find the best stitch pattern is to use the umbilical tape, bury the suture deep, almost to where the hair grows on the sides of the vulva where the perineum meets the thigh, like 2" deep and 2-3 inches away from the vulva lips. Bury all the tape under the skin except where you tie your bow, a purse string. Leave the tape long and tie a bow and you can open it when she comes into heat and close it again after. It smells to high heaven but you can buy a lot of time with this method.
4-5 cc of lidocaine in the tailhead will allow you to do a good job without torturing the cow.
 
We had a bad one too.

Heifer did a uterine prolapse. Some how instead of going out with the steers she was turned out with the bull. Bull bred her.
Saw her on the hill and she looked weird so we ran her in. The prolapse had been out for quite awhile and was dried up and sunburned.
Vet came out and he could not get it back in it was that bad.
He took that bull bander he had and found the uera and banded it so she could at least pee and cut the rest off.
Put it back in sewed her closed and we pumped her full of antibiotics.
She finished raising her calf and hit the road.

That is one mess I really don't like talking about.
 
hillsdown":2hm08kam said:
Chris H":2hm08kam said:
Why are you keeping a problem?
Click to expand...


I am assuming she has a calf in her .
Click to expand...

It's a lot of work to get a live calf & healthy cow in these situations. With all the people replying about making sure the stitches are out before breeding, I was hoping the OP wasn't making that mistake.
We've dealt with a number of prolapses sired by 1 bull. We've got those out of the herd, but if I ever see another vaginal prolapse before calving, she'll get a c-section & then shipped, or get shipped if the calf isn't far enough along to live.
 
I've found prolapses are a hereditary trait, particularly vaginal... we've culled at least a dozen cows (or they did it themselves) for vaginal prolapse... now if it bulges out enough when they lay down that the tail can scrub it, they're gone the following year.. I've had cows that get super floppy before calving with no VP at all, no matter how old they are, while I've had heifers from bad bloodlines get it with the first calf. My parents say its from a lack of exercise, the land being too sloped, etc.. I beg to differ, though those may be aggravating factors, they aren't the root cause
 
wow, the last couple weeks just shot by!

I ended up putting 7 stitches, three different tries in the old girl! She is FINALLY holding together now and I may even turn her back out soon as I don't need to be feeding her along with the other bums I seem to always accumulate.

ChrisH, not keeping a problem, just trying to get a cull cow (pair) cleaned up and healthy enough to ship. She hasn't done this before and she has a calf on her.

Hillsdown, calf is on her, not in her - around here they seem to do it after birthing and when the cow is in kind of poor condition. This cow was a little thin )not really that bad, but no rain since end of September and mesquite browse was 2 to 3 weeks late this year left them with nothing green to speak of since October-November.

Nesikep, I learned here on this board that vaginal prolapse was supposed to be more hereditary than uterine, but I kept on cow that did it on her first calf and she has had 3 more since that with no problems, and her first heifer calved fine this year. The previous times they got shipped. I've actually only seen it 3 or 4 times in my life and it has always been after calving that anybody noticed.
so my actual experience is not too extensive. These are range cows so they aren't all observed laying down right before calving very often. I'll see them out grazing or in to water, but not so much laying around.
 
HR we kept a heifer calf out of a cow that did a uterine prolapse, that calf did the same thing full uterine prolapse. Did it once more after that same thing.
Anything that prolapses hits the road.
We have never kept a uterine prolapse cow after they have done. See my last post on here. That cow was a uterine prolapse.
 

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