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Faunsdale, AL | Well.....not really. When you collect the data to compare manual removal vs natural sloughing, the natural slough group breed back better.
You do have to watch the ones you leave to take care of it on their own. I would say it is rare for a beef cow to have any problem, but dairy cows, especially in stressful conditions ( hot weather for example) can get toxic fast. The good thing is you are milking them, so you can keep a watch on them, even temp them if you want.
There is really nothing available to speed up the process of shedding a retain. If you give some sort of injection before 7 days post calving and the placenta drops, it was not a real retained placenta, it was just hung up, cow had quit straining or something. A true retained placenta is attached by collagen fibers, the same stuff that makes steak tough. The reason that collagen is still there in a retained placenta is somewhat of a mystery. In the normal situation it "ripens" ahead of calving and is ready to rupture as soon as the calf is delivered.
In both normal and retained placenta cows, about a week after calving an additional layer of the placental attachment to the uterus is sloughed. In the normal cows this produces a small amount of a sticky red to brown discharge called lochia. This stuff has very little odor and requires no treatment.
In the retained placenta cows when this last layer of the placenta sloughs off the uterus, it takes the rest of the rotting, fetid mess too.
About 25 years ago, i was able to participate in a trial of an experimental treatment to infuse the retained placenta blood vessels with a collagenase enzyme solution on the first day after calving. This stuff "tenderized" the collagen fibers that had not ripened properly before calving and the placenta dropped by the 3rd day post calving. This was before the cow had time to get sick. Unfortunately this has never been marketed and we are still sometimes using antibiotics to keep the cow from getting sick and dying.
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Heifer still has after birth
