Retained Placenta

[bandit80]

Had a 3 year old cow calved on Sunday morning. Had to pull the calf as she was not trying to push. I knew her water broke sometime before 630am and was doing nothing by 800am. It was not a hard pull, everyone is fine.

However, the cow has a retained placenta as of this morning. My vet said to give her lutalyse and either LA200 or pennicillin tonight, and if she has yet to pass the placenta by tomorrow, she will need to be cleaned. I though oxytocin would be a better bet than the lutalyse, what am I missing.

Anybody else have any other thoughts? It has probably been 6 years since I have had one of these, and can't remember much about them.

 

[rockridgecattle]

oxytocin needs to be started in the first 24 hours of birth. Something to do with the combo of hormones. It helps to shrink the uterus after a strenuous birth, as well as dialate her to help her clean(from memory, if not totally correct, blame age please).
Lute however will cause her to cycle, forcing expel the after birth

RP is usually a cause of lack of selenium, E and A&D. I would also give her a shot of these vits and minerals.

 

[bigbull338]

give her the shots your vet recommended.an if you start smelling something youll have to flush her out.the shots should clean her out though.

 

[milkmaid]

Oxytocin is basically useless after 48 hours post-partum unless the cow has been given a shot of estrogen. It only causes uterine contractions under the presence of estrogen and so Lutalyse is a better choice for most cases of RP because of that. Give 5mL of Lute every 12 hours for 48-60 hours (or until she cleans). (RR, just FYI - Lute causes smooth muscle contractions and regression of the CL; in a fresh cow with no CL it will not cause her to cycle, but the action of Lute on the uterus as a smooth muscle will cause her to expel the afterbirth.)

I'd wait 2-3 days on the antibiotics unless she goes off feed. Even for a dairy cow - that has a high tendency to develop a uterine infection - there's very few times they need to be treated sooner than 72 hours post partum.

 

[rockridgecattle]

MM,
thanks

RR

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

I hate to step on a vets toes - but - his advice is a bit out-dated. It is RARE that a cow would need to have the RP "removed", even after it gets "stinky". Also, if you gave an antibiotic when she is not sick only accomplishes making the RP worse. Natural "bugs" in her system will eat away at the RP & clean her up. Antibiotics kill the good bugs and should only be given if the cow goes off feed and/or runs a fever.

 

[bandit80]

Thanks for everyone's responses. The cow had gone ahead and passed the placenta when I checked her yesterday afternoon.

 

[TexasBred]

Guess I'll go against the grain on this one too. After 24 hours if she hasn't cleaned out I sanitize, glove up and go inside. Wait til she stinks and you already have a problem brewing. As long as you pull easy and worm slowly and don't draw any new blood you're not going to harm her. Done it hundreds of times with dairy cattle.....much better than treating a uterine infection that could have been avoided. Ok now.....everyone unload on me.. :lol2: :lol2:

 

[dun]

Guess I'll go against the grain on this one too. After 24 hours if she hasn't cleaned out I sanitize, glove up and go inside. Wait til she stinks and you already have a problem brewing. As long as you pull easy and worm slowly and don't draw any new blood you're not going to harm her. Done it hundreds of times with dairy cattle.....much better than treating a uterine infection that could have been avoided. Ok now.....everyone unload on me.. :lol2: :lol2:

That's the way iwe did it in the 50s and 60s. Now it's been determined through studys at a bunch of places including MARC that manual cleaning generally causes slower breed back and possible reproductive problems. I've seen them stay as long as 2 weeks, couldn;t get within 30 feet of the cow she stunk so bad. One morning waiting to come in to be milked she dropped it on the patio. I was sure glad I was the tester and not the owner. Cow had no problems and bred back on schedule.

 

[milkmaid]

Guess I'll go against the grain on this one too. After 24 hours if she hasn't cleaned out I sanitize, glove up and go inside. Wait til she stinks and you already have a problem brewing. As long as you pull easy and worm slowly and don't draw any new blood you're not going to harm her. Done it hundreds of times with dairy cattle.....much better than treating a uterine infection that could have been avoided. Ok now.....everyone unload on me.. :lol2: :lol2:

I'm with you on this one... we usually wait about 48 hours, but I've seen dozens of dairy cattle cleaned out manually. Almost all the cases I've seen of cows with uterine adhesions and scarring are a result of the cow having a severe post-partum uterine infection, and the cows we clean manually before they develop an infection breed back on schedule. Once a cow starts running a high temp and goes off feed you're in trouble and may even lose the cow.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

As MM has pointed out before. There seems to be a great discretion between beef herds & dairy. In over 35 years of having beef cattle, I have NEVER seen a cow get sick from a RP - not in my herd or anyone else's that I have known.

 

[TexasBred]

As MM has pointed out before. There seems to be a great discretion between beef herds & dairy. In over 35 years of having beef cattle, I have NEVER seen a cow get sick from a RP - not in my herd or anyone else's that I have known.

Sounds like you're going a lot correctly. :tiphat: and you're correct in that it doesn't occur nearly as often in beef cattle as in dairy cattle. Beef cattle are almost on what I might call a "dry cow" diet all the time except in the winter when many give them grain. Dairy cattle are fed like furnaces during lactation and then backed down to 6 or 8 pounds of feed per day. Some dairy dry cow programs are better than others but you'll still run a high percentage of RP's and uterine infections if not taken care of quickly.

 

[Susie David]

We had two heifers calve within a week of each other and both hung on to the plancentas. Talked with our vet about it and he was prety sure that it was a A & D defieiency. Both cleaned at eight days all by themselves with no problems, Temps were normal and they are good mamas.
Back when I wore a bigger buckle and smaller belt it was the practice to manually clean them out but looks like that antiquated thinking did more harm than good. From what I've been told it is best to just let them drag around the tissue and let them clean out by themselves as long as there are no problems. I did give the whole lot of them A&D injections just to be sure.
This was the first that we've had in as long as I remember. The cows all flushed in a few hours.
DMc

 

[TexasBred]

I don't think manually cleaning out a cow with a RP is antiquated thinking at all. I'll continue to do it whenever necessary. Sure not gonna let one "drag one off" 8 days after calving. I'm sure a lot of people do it this way tho. Down here in this heat it would have magots in it by then. Just seen too many cows in poorly run operations literally drop dead from uterine infections or lose 300 lbs. of weight and milk go to nothing. Cattle with uterine infections DO NOT breed back as long as there is an infection.I'm surprised the vet recommended Vitamin A rather than E....Vitamin D deficiency should be rare as cattle synthesize Vitamin D via the skin from sunlight.

 

[bigbull338]

most beef people wouldnt know it if they had a cow that didnt clean.because they wouldnt know what todo.as TB said a cow that dont clean in a week or 10 days will go down fast.an they can dropp 200lbs over nite.an stink to high heaven.if your worried about a cow that wont clean.give her a 5 gal bucket of warm water.an she will usually slick out within 24hrs.you have to give her the water as soon as you see her calve.

 

[Susie David]

5 gals of warm water...that is to drink..right?
DMC

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Yes, that's for them to DRINK! The old timer dairymen around here all swear by it.

 

[dun]

The warm water as soon as the calve sounds like the "elephant repellent". If they drink it and clean is it because they drank it or because they would have cleaned anyway?

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Dun - it always sounded like "phoo-phoo dust" to me. And you can just imagine carrying a 5 gal bucket of water from the house (how many have hot water in barn???) to "wherever" the cow is. And how THIRSTY would they have to be to drink it before it got COLD???
Of course, in the South, all the cattle water is probably warm, so they must never have RP.

 

[ShallowCreekRanch]

I had one this year too, and I did what your Vet had said but I added a flush of distilled water and 50% LA 200. She was good by the next morning, so it was about 24 hours.