#10 gave birth on January 30th, 2024 to a beautiful bull #27. This was our 3rd calf of 2024. Mother and baby were all healthy.
After a few days, I noticed that she hadn’t passed her placenta or afterbirth. This is a fairly rare condition called retained placenta. By day 4, I knew something had to be done. It was not going to pass on its own.
The dangers of retained placenta are mostly infection. As the placenta rots, it can damage the uterus and maybe even make the cow sterile. A sterile cow is a useless cow. We don’t have grass to feed cows that don’t give us baby calves, and so she would end up at the sale barn and in someone’s hamburger.
I called the vet and they squeezed me in. I penned up the cow and her calf for the night. In order to do that, I had to move several cows down together and then separate #10 from the others. I sent the rest of the cows back to the pasture with the herd.
It was clear #10 was not happy. Maybe she was in pain or at least some level of discomfort, but she challenged the gate. Thankfully it held. I’ve seen cows break steel gates before, but that was an exceptional circumstance.
My neighbor was kind enough to drive me and the cow down to the vet the next morning on February 6th, 2024. The vet put the cow in a squeeze chute and put a bar in to prevent kicking. Then he gloved up and gently coaxed the placenta out, which at this point had the consistency of cottage cheese. I should mention he washed the area off with a spray hose and iodine scrub. After it was pulled out he out in some iodine bolluses and checked that everything else was healthy.
You could see the relief in the eyes of the cow. No longer was she angry and combative, but gentle and docile, just like I knew her to be. She easily loaded herself on the trailer and we took her home. It wasn’t long before she was reunited with her calf and everyone was happy.
Going forward, I’ll probably contact the vet sooner. maybe on day 3 of the retained placenta. If I see symptoms of illness, I’ll contact the vet as soon as that happens. If I needed to, I could probably do this procedure myself in the field, using a tranquilizer to immobilize the cow rather than trying to get the cow into a chute. It’s not a pretty procedure, but the cow will be grateful once everything is taken care of.
The best part? No antibiotics were used. Just iodine for scrubbing up and the iodine bolluses to disinfect the uterus.