CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The objectives of this study were to evaluate the reproductive and productive performance of dairy cows with and without puerperal metritis and to evaluate the effectiveness of using a long-acting ceftiofur preparation. Dairy cows in one dairy farm, calving from July 2009 to January 2010 were examined between 3 and 14 days postpartum and classified based on vaginal discharge into three groups: cows with normal discharge (control; C); cows with a bloody mucus purulent or purulent non-fetid discharge (PnFD), and cows with bloody muco-purulent or purulent, fetid discharge (PFD). Cows in C and PnFD groups were not treated, whereas those in the PFD group were randomly allocated to receive 2.2 mg/kg of ceftiofur subcutaneously behind the ear (PFD-T) or remain untreated (PFD-No T). From the 640 cows examined, 58.2% formed the C group, 13.4% formed the PnFD group, and 28.4% formed the PFD group. Survival curves differed between cows in the C group and PFD-No T group (P=0.0013) and between PFD-No T versus PFD-T group (P=0.0006). Survival curves of PnFD were intermediate and did not differ from those in the C group (P=0.2) and PFD-T group (P=0.1), but tended to be different from the PFD-No T group (P=0.056). The postpartum interval to achieve a 25% pregnancy rate was 72 days for cows in the C group, 73 days for the PFD-T group, 83 days for PnFD group, and 95 days for the PFD-No T group. The chance of pregnancy in a cow in the C group was 1.98 times higher (95% CI = 1.33, 3.08) and in cows in the PFD-T group was 2.16 times higher (95% CI = 1.37, 3.50) than those in the PFD-No T group. Finally, the chance of pregnancy in cows in the PnFD group tended to be higher (P=0.08) than those in the PFD-No T group, but did not differ from the other two groups. Cumulative 305-day milk production was higher (P

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