bloody discharge from non-bred cow

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Our milk cow "had a visit with the bull" in July and we assumed she was bred since she didn't show any subsequent signs of heat. In early November she came in to milk one evening with a bloody discharge. I thought maybe she had miscarried, but didn't find anything in the pasture. (She has access to 30 acres and it snowed soon after this.) She has been in heat twice since then, the latest being three days ago. This morning she showed up with the discharge again. Is this something I should be concerned about? She has had three previous calves with no problems. Any help would be appreciated. Jody in South Dakota

-- Jody Johnson (jjj@itctel.com), January 20, 2002

Answers

Jody, how big of a discharge are you talking about from this morning? A cow who has just been in heat (just past 24 hours or so) will quite often pass a very small amount of blood from the vulva. We're talking just a smear, a half teaspoon amount. This is from the breakdown of capillaries after the heat. It doesn't have anything to do with whether she conceived or not, and you won't see it on every cow. Hope this helps.

-- Jennifer L. (Northern NYS) (jlance@nospammail.com), January 20, 2002.

I would say in about 17 days she needs to she the bull again.If she aborted the calf at 3 or 4 months bred it would be very small and not likely you would have found it.Good luck.

-- Ed campbell (whighlan@msn.com), January 20, 2002.

If your vet has large animal experience, have him/her sleeve the cow before you breed her again. Sometimes loss of a pregnancy or loss of what seemed to be a pregnancy can involve the cow not cycling properly in the first place or raising an ovarian cyst after breeding that interferes with the pregnancy. The only way to diagnose this is to sleeve the animal rectally. It is done by touch and a good practitioner can differentiate between the types of cysts and the stage in the cycle simply by feeling the ovarian structures. You can also tell if there is a low grade uterine infection by doing this sleeving as the walls of the uterus will have a distinct feel and varying size to the lumen. Then if all is okay it is fine to breed the animal, otherwise you're wasting time and money. If I were there, I would help you out as I can palpate cows, but, oh well. Best of luck.

-- Sandra Nelson (Magin@starband.net), January 21, 2002.

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