Hanging water bag/placenta

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cghoerichs

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I have a 3 year old angus cow. She had her water bag out for a day and a night and it was broken so got her into the chute and reached in to see if everything was okay. Everything felt okay, but rather than wait I pulled it. The heifer came out fine and the cow was released and went right to the calf. I did notice what appeared to be another water bag hanging out a little later. That was 2 days ago and it is still hanging today, although it looks like placenta maybe, I can't really tell because it is so funky, but it is thicker than a water bag so I'm assuming it is placenta. So yesterday we put the cow back into the chute and tried to strip some milk because we weren't sure the calf was nursing. The cow was dry so we figured that she had nursed and we didn't see it. The cow was way back in one of our pastures so I wasn't really able to keep an eye on them all that much. Anyway, turns out the calf wasn't getting nursed so I poured the replacer/colostrum additive to the heifer this morning and we'll see what happens from here. But the the question is about the cow, what does anyone think of the water bag/placenta hanging out for 2 days? I'm not going to put her in the chute again unless it is life threatening. As info the cow had twins last year and didn't nurse either one of those worth a darn. We just figured it was because it was the cows first calves and twins.
 
cghoerichs":1pqrc21m said:
I'm not going to put her in the chute again unless it is life threatening.
If there is a second calf in there, it's life threatening. Get her in and glove up. Seen a couple cows die from a twin rotting away inside. If/when she straightens out I would be shipping her ASAP. Sounds like nothing but trouble.
 
I am with Nova on this one----find out if there is a second calf and then ship her when she is ready---she is not going to nurse to help you any
 
I couldn't feel anything in there that resembled a calf so I'm assuming it's placenta which she still has hanging out the back end. Guess we'll wait until the placenta drops and take her to the sale barn...
 
Had to breath through my mouth for quite some time - some day I'll remember to buy some shoulder length gloves to keep around...
 
Even if there isn't a second calf in there it could be life threatening.

You have most likely introduced bacteria, and with the now rotting placenta thats not a great combination.
Get some antibiotic from your vet and inject her with it.

Then you can apply gentle pressure pulling with a twisting motion. If it doesn't come out today, it will tomorrow :lol:

Then when she is all better, its time to ship her.
 
why would you leave a cow in active labour (water bag showing and broken) for a day and a half?????

you had better be thanking your lucky stars that calf was still alive

get her the meds she needs for the retained placenta
 

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