Strategy for the treatment of puerperal metritis and improvement of reproductive efficiency in cows with retained placenta.

The objective of this study was to improve the reproductive efficiency of dairy cows with puerperal metritis (PM) subsequent to retained placenta (RP) using a two-step treatment strategy. A total of 188 postpartum cows, aged from 2 to 8 years, were utilised for 2 experiments. In Experiment 1, cows affected with RP/PM were randomly assigned to two treatment groups. Cows in Group A (n = 17) were treated with 600 mg of ceftiofur intramuscularly for 3 days followed by intrauterine lavage with 0.1% chlorhexidine and infusion with 0.5% povidoneiodine, while cows in Group B (n = 16) received two intrauterine infusions, first with 5 g of oxytetracycline and then with 0.5% povidone-iodine. Cows with normal postpartum findings were regarded as the healthy control group (n = 26). Ultrasonographic examination revealed that the ovarian activities including the appearance of a dominant follicle and days to first ovulation of the cows in Group A during the early postpartum period differed from those of Group B (P < 0.05), which coincided with the results of uterine swabbing for bacteriology. In Experiment 2, cows with normal postpartum findings were allocated to Group D (n = 78), which received an ovulation protocol (GnRH - 7 d PGF2α - 48 h hCG - 24 h AI) on day 50 ± 2 postpartum. Cows affected with PM were randomly divided into two groups, Group E (n = 25) combined the treatments applied in Groups A and D, while Group F (n = 26) repeated the treatment administered in Group E except for uterine lavage. The results indicated that the pregnancy rate within 150 days postpartum and the mean days open in Group E (76.0% and 106.3 ± 4.6 days, respectively) were significantly different from those in Group F (38.5% and 137.9 ± 10.9 days, respectively) (P < 0.05). This study suggests that reproductive efficiency could be improved by using the two-step treatment to regulate uterine involution and an early resumption of ovarian function in cows with RP/PM.