Retained placenta?

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gertman

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I do not know if I used the right term for my topic, but I have an 8 year old cow that calved Sunday (Nov. 12), but she has not passed her placenta or afterbirth as of today (Thursday), has anyone else had a cow take this long? What causes this? By the way the cow and calf appear to be doing fine other than the posted problem.
 
gertman":2ej4swnj said:
I do not know if I used the right term for my topic, but I have an 8 year old cow that calved Sunday (Nov. 12), but she has not passed her placenta or afterbirth as of today (Thursday), has anyone else had a cow take this long? What causes this? By the way the cow and calf appear to be doing fine other than the posted problem.

We see this every now and then. Reasons for a cow to retain the placenta are; Difficulty calving, Twins, Deficiency of Vit A, Deficiency of Selenium.

We usually leave it alone, and it will eventually fall out. Don't cut it off as the weight of it will help. You can try giving a shot of Vit ADE as I have heard that it will help. The only thing we do is to give them a shot of penicillin, especially if it is taking a really long time for her to clean. It can cause them to be late breeding back too.
 
Do a search for retained placentas and you'll come up with plenty of information. I'd advise keeping an eye on her; seems beef cows don't generally have problems, but I'm more used to the dairy cows that have a tendency to get sick if they haven't expelled the afterbirth by 3-5 days after calving. And sick enough that it'll kill them, at that.
 
you need to do something about it. as already stated, she probably either had trouble calving or has a deficiency. if she is still retaining her cleanings tomorrow give her a shot of lutalyse and infuse her. we usually infuse them with a solution of chlorotetracycline and a cup and a half of water. if she has dropped her cleanings by tomorrow you dont need to give her the lutaylse but you should go ahead and infuse her. if you arent set up to infuse her give her 50 cc of LA-200 or the equivalent--should do the job as well.
 
As you see there are a lot of "different" thoughts on this.
Years ago (and some vets still do) they would manually enter the cow & "unbutton" the cardilidons (sp?) and remove the placenta. This is very frowned upon now.
It is advised to LEAVE IT ALONE - DO NOT TREAT WITH ANY ANTIBIOTIC - unless the cow shows signs of illness - like off feed or running a fever (than treatment is definately recommended). It will get stinky if it takes a long time to fall out, but leave it alone. Some people tie it in a knot so she doesn't step on it. I would just leave it alone.
The cows natural "bugs" will eat away at the decaying matter & she will 'sluff" off the hangings. IF you give an antibiotic, you are killing off the good bugs that would have eaten the tiny peices that get left behind.
Yes, I would advise giving her a shot of lutalyse - but not until 7-10 days after calving. And again 2 weeks later.
"Generally" distocia, mineral deficiences, twins, very early/late calving date, or induced labor will cause this. It generally WILL slow her return to estrous for rebreeding. That's why the lut shot is excellent. Lut helps the uterus to "expell" and clean out any infections or "debris".
Hope this helps.
 
I checked on her today and mother nature ran her course and the afterbirth or placenta was gone. Thanks for the replies they may be of some help in the future. Since some of you said mineral deficiency could be the problem I did switch minerals this year from vigortone to multikare because the multikare was cheaper but the ingredients on the label were the same percentage or better than the vigortone, maybe I'll go back vigortone.
 
FWIW... I spoke with my boss yesterday, and he said he's been using Multimin (contains selenium, copper, zinc, and magnesium) on all bred cows as soon as they show signs of bagging up (about 2 weeks prior to calving). Said he really likes it and hasn't had any retained placentas in several months.
 
milkmaid

The multimin is also great if you have a footrot outbreak ( one of the causes being a Zn deficiency) I've had on 4 years ago and eversince the multimin was used once a year and I haven't had problems since.
 
milkmaid":14fyleyk said:
FWIW... I spoke with my boss yesterday, and he said he's been using Multimin (contains selenium, copper, zinc, and magnesium) on all bred cows as soon as they show signs of bagging up (about 2 weeks prior to calving). Said he really likes it and hasn't had any retained placentas in several months.

Milkmaid, Has he had enough retained placentas in the past to say the Multimin has caused significant improvement? I've not had many cases of retained placenta and those have caused me no known problems. Don't like to throw money at a problem that may not exist. JMO
 
gertman":3pn4dsku said:
I do not know if I used the right term for my topic, but I have an 8 year old cow that calved Sunday (Nov. 12), but she has not passed her placenta or afterbirth as of today (Thursday), has anyone else had a cow take this long? What causes this? By the way the cow and calf appear to be doing fine other than the posted problem.


Do you have pine trees in your country? We do. There is a fungus on the pine needles which causes abortions or early calving. You'd be surprised that cows would even eat such a thing. When that happens, you get a retained placenta. You can give her a shot of oxytocin along with penicillin to keep her from getting a uterine infection.

Even if it's not from pine needles, give her a shot of oxytocin along with a hefty dose of penicillin. This should clear her right up. :)
 
Cowdirt":3v9sre4z said:
milkmaid":3v9sre4z said:
FWIW... I spoke with my boss yesterday, and he said he's been using Multimin (contains selenium, copper, zinc, and magnesium) on all bred cows as soon as they show signs of bagging up (about 2 weeks prior to calving). Said he really likes it and hasn't had any retained placentas in several months.

Milkmaid, Has he had enough retained placentas in the past to say the Multimin has caused significant improvement? I've not had many cases of retained placenta and those have caused me no known problems. Don't like to throw money at a problem that may not exist. JMO

Yep - we've had a significant problem with retained placentas on all cows, not just ones with calving problems/twins. So for boss to say that he hasn't had any problems is significant. It seemed that using Mu-Se helped (we used it during the spring/early summer), but didn't help as much as the Multimin has. (BTW though, Multimin is also sold under a different name and is quite a bit cheaper that way.)

slazyk - FWIW, oxytocin only works (for uterine contractions) within 48 hours of calving. After that the uterus must be resensitized with estrogen.
 
slazyk":1e65qy73 said:
gertman":1e65qy73 said:
I do not know if I used the right term for my topic, but I have an 8 year old cow that calved Sunday (Nov. 12), but she has not passed her placenta or afterbirth as of today (Thursday), has anyone else had a cow take this long? What causes this? By the way the cow and calf appear to be doing fine other than the posted problem.


Do you have pine trees in your country? We do. There is a fungus on the pine needles which causes abortions or early calving. You'd be surprised that cows would even eat such a thing. When that happens, you get a retained placenta. You can give her a shot of oxytocin along with penicillin to keep her from getting a uterine infection.

Even if it's not from pine needles, give her a shot of oxytocin along with a hefty dose of penicillin. This should clear her right up. :)

Yes we have an abundance of pine trees in the pasture, so I guess that could be a reason.
 
Hate to say it but unlsee you watch the cow 24/7 you may never know when she cleans out. What has been comming out of her, if anything? I agree with the others...just keep an eye on her. You could always glove-up and have a look see...but I don't recommend it.
As to Pine Needle Abortion...takes about three days to abort after eating the needles and there are alot of other species beside ponderosa pine that will cause it. Don't know the quanity necessary to trigger the abortion but some cows develop a real likeing for the needles. We trim the trees up as far as a man can reach with the nippers and remove all saplings from the cow pastures...get real busy when we get a heavy snow and it brings the branches down to grazing level.
And that's my two bits worth. Dmc
 
I repeat - if the cow is staying healthy - I would NOT give ANY antibiotics. Yes, oxytocin is good right at calving (like Milkmaid said). You will "probably" see a creamy colored discharge from her vulva. This will indicate an infection, and I would advise the Lutalyse program. Ask your vet.
 
gertman":vk2m4dsc said:
I checked on her today and mother nature ran her course and the afterbirth or placenta was gone. Thanks for the replies they may be of some help in the future. Since some of you said mineral deficiency could be the problem I did switch minerals this year from vigortone to multikare because the multikare was cheaper but the ingredients on the label were the same percentage or better than the vigortone, maybe I'll go back vigortone.

The percentages may be the same but the source/type of mineral may be different. Some forms are more easily utilized.

dun
 
Susie David":1ckclpbn said:
Hate to say it but unlsee you watch the cow 24/7 you may never know when she cleans out. What has been comming out of her, if anything? I agree with the others...just keep an eye on her. You could always glove-up and have a look see...but I don't recommend it.
As to Pine Needle Abortion...takes about three days to abort after eating the needles and there are alot of other species beside ponderosa pine that will cause it. Don't know the quanity necessary to trigger the abortion but some cows develop a real likeing for the needles. We trim the trees up as far as a man can reach with the nippers and remove all saplings from the cow pastures...get real busy when we get a heavy snow and it brings the branches down to grazing level.
And that's my two bits worth. Dmc


We fall calve, had a snowstorm during peak of calving, even tho we fed cows, we know for a fact some cows just plain like pine needles. Wellll, shortly after the snowstorm we started getting retained placentas on a bunch of 3 yr olds. Figured out they were eating pine needles, luckily the calves born were full term. We still had the retained placentas. We normally just let them go for a couple days, if they don't clean we'll run them in and give them a long-acting penicillin shot. Once. We haven't had to do that this year, they've cleaned themselves and gone on with their lives. We use very little antibiotics in our herd so it seems when we need to use it, the problem clears up fast
 
anytime we have a cow that doesn't clean herself within 48 hours we have the vet out and pull it and always a big shot of an antibiotic.
 
gertfan":1ecem61z said:
anytime we have a cow that doesn't clean herself within 48 hours we have the vet out and pull it and always a big shot of an antibiotic.
Yes, if you call your vet out & ask him to remove the afterbirth, he will (at least they do for the "old timers" around here). But, if you ask our vets what they RECOMMEND, they will say - leave it alone - NEVER REMOVE IT.
 

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