From what I've been able tofind on the subject and conventional wisdom, precalving prolapse is a heritable trait of a reproductive fault in the cow/bull. In other words, it's in the genes. Postcalving prolapse is generally caused by some type of stress/problem at calving, i.e. hard pull, excessively hard labor, etc. Vaginal prolapse in my observations doesn't fall as neatly into that type of deal. My wifes pet Pig Hereford started vaginal and swelling of the vulva about 3 months before calving as a heifer. She would swell up the size of a basketball at times, others only the size of a volleyball. She was a hard pull, only because she was so swelled that the calves head hung up in swelled tissue and I had to work the tissue over the calves head, a couple of hours later she prolapsed. Vety put it back and sewed her up. She raised the calf no problems, didn;t get infected or anything like that. Within days the swelling all went away, two weeks later we clipped and pulled the stitches. She was standing in the pasture feeding her calf, I just walked up behind her and clipped and pulled them. At that point in time she became my pet also. We bred her back, took first service and and had a calving interval of 371 days. Two weeks before calving, she prolapsed her vagina again, I put it back in several times till the vet got out to sew her back up. She had the same type of swelling as the first time. The day she calved happened to be a low swelling day (volleyball), she calved with no problems and didn't prolapse. She won;t be bred again, after breeding season, when Gomer goes into the fattening pen, "Ole Red" goes with him and will be fattened and turned into burger. She's a great mother, maternal, fertile, but we can't put her through it again, or ourselves for that matter. We're hoping that she doesn't pass it on since she has given us two gorgeous heifers sired by Red Angus bulls. Apparently, Herefords are noted for prolapsing, it's probably a family (blood line) characteristic like Limo disposition, Simmentals being jumpy, Jerseys being stubborn, etc. I think it is anyway, may be wrong, have been before.
dunmovin farms
> Well..... my vet says there was
> nothing I did that caused my cow's
> prolapse, but I can think of two
> mistakes I made at the first of
> the year that might have
> contributed to it: I overfed, and
> I shut them up in a pen (100x200),
> depriving her of exercise.
> Granted, I am just thinking I
> didn't help her, even if the vet
> said I didn't do anything to cause
> it. Now, I have fifty years of
> parental experience behind me, and
> the folks only had one cow that
> prolapsed and she only did it that
> one pregnancy.