Multiple abortions, same cow

Gather App
R

remsteel6

Active member
Joined
Sep 14, 2007
Messages
41
City & State/Province
ohio
Anyone had the same cow abort multiple times and if so were you able to
determine the cause. Rebred a 1st calf heifer of mine last June, she aborted
in Nov. revaccinated her, rebred her in Feb and she just aborted again at almost
the same pt. in gest. 4-5 mo. Needless to say her days here are numbered and she
will be leaving next week but I was just curious if others had similar problems.
 
Have your entire cowherd (including replacement heifers) tested for brucellosis, all the calves and that cow tested for BVD PI status and if everything comes back negative cull the cow. I suspect it won't all come back negative, I'm afraid.

Did you have the aborted foetusses analysed to idntify a possible cause?
 
What is your vaccination program? feeding program? was she in the same pasture as the last time? is she "bucking" to go up a peg in the rankings and take a head shot to the side? same bull used both times (or same shipment of semen if you AI)?

More info would be helpful.
 
If shes the only cow aborting in your herd, I would get rid of her. If you have had a few others abort, might be time to check out the things others mentioned on here....including your bull.
We once had a Santa Gertrudis bull, and I liked the calves it produced, but we had numerous calves that were aborted or born crippled when we had that bull. Got rid of him, got a Limi, and have not had a problem since.
 
Well, to answer a few of the questions posted above:

All my cattle are AI'd, no bulls on premises.

She was bred back to the same bull.

As for vaccination program, all heifers are vaccinated with
Bovishield Gold FP VL5 which covers
IBR, BVD types 1 &2, PI3, BRSV Lepto and Vibrio.

She had calved once and rebred right away 5.5 months later
aborted, I then did as the vet suggested and treated her with
LA200 and revaccinated her with Spirovac VL5 covers a specific
type of lepto the vet thought we had in our area and vibrio

She rebred, and ~5 months later aborted again.

No other cows had obvious abortions, but I did have to rebreed
a few a couple months after orig. service with makes me suspicious
that they were bred and lost the calf as no heats were seen in between.

Cow was inside (barn) for 1st incident in Nov. and outside in pasture for 2nd.
episode.

Thanks for the comments

She's currently temporarily residing at the sale barn.
 
If your vaccination program is carried out diligently you can almost rule out what the vaccine covers, but I would still have them tested for brucellosis. The timeframe of the abortions suggests that it could very well be brucellosis, given the seriousness of the disease I would not take any chances
 
Well, I can't explain other than in a crude fashion, sorry. If the cervix is too thin it won't hold up. The calf can develop as normal clear up into the 3rd trimester, then it is more of a pre-term delivery rather than what I would call an abortion (if you can distinguish between the two). It is rare but can happen in a lot of species.

edit: I found this website that explains it in humans. I couldn't find an example for cattle in a quick search (it's late) http://lib.bioinfo.pl/auth:Baxter,JK
The risk of spontaneous preterm birth before 35 weeks decreased by approximately 6% for each additional millimeter of cervical length (odds ratio 0.94, 95% confidence interval, 0.92-0.95, P=.001) and by approximately 5% for each additional week of pregnancy at which the cervical length was measured (odds ratio 0.95, 95% confidence interval 0.92-0.98, P=.004). Similar results were obtained for spontaneous preterm birth before 32 and 28 weeks. CONCLUSION: Gestational age at which transvaginal ultrasound cervical length is measured significantly affects the calculation of risk of spontaneous preterm birth. The spontaneous preterm birth risk increases as the length of the cervix declines and as the gestational age decreases. These spontaneous preterm birth risks are important for counseling and management for women with various degrees of short cervical length at different gestational ages.
 
Santas and Duhram Reds":1op5k083 said:
Well, I can't explain other than in a crude fashion, sorry. If the cervix is too thin it won't hold up. If a cervix is too thick then the calf can run out of room. In both cases, the calf can develop as normal clear up into the 3rd trimester, then it is more of a pre-term delivery rather than what I would call an abortion (if you can distinguish between the two). It is rare but can happen in a lot of species.
Click to expand...

That doesn't really make sense.

Here's the bovine reproductive tract (in this case, a calf's):



Fetus develops in one of the two uterine horns, cervix stays closed during pregnancy and opens at calving in order for the calf to go through the cervix, vagina, and then vulva and be born. I'm willing to accept that there's lots I don't know, but I can't see as it's possible for the cervix to be too "thick" or too "thin"; it's just a certain length. The real test of how much room a calf has, is how much area is available next to the digestive tract for the uterus to stretch. Even so -- we've all seen heavy bred cows that look big enough to pop and yet they just keep getting bigger.

Sometimes a cervix will be torn or damaged during a difficult delivery and it doesn't keep the uterus closed and sterile enough to maintain a future pregnancy, but generally those cows won't keep a calf beyond the first 30 days.

*Just saw your edit* Okay, that makes more sense now. Initially I figured you were talking about the thickness of the wall of the cervix, which I can't see as it would correlate to premature labor.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top