Prolapse Uterus in Cows and Horses

I've recently been watching quite a few episodes of the Incredible Dr Pol - on NatGeo TV recently.

I find the show pretty fascinating since I'm still considering which track I would like to take as a Vet.
Do I want to be a large animal Vet? This would mean most of the farm animals.
Shall I just work on Cats and Dogs?
Or do I want to travel the world and be a wildlife vet (and its quite competitive too)?
There is the option of a Marine Vet which goes hand in hand with my love for Scuba Diving.
Or I could also look at exotic pets such as hamsters, rabbits (yes those fall under that category), iguanas etc.

Since I'm studying as an International Student here, I must also consider if there is a viable industry back home on what I choose to specialise in.

Instead of obsessing over it, I'm still a year one student so there will be sometime before that decision needs to be made and the farm practicals have been helpful too.

Dr Pol's TV show on life as a farm vet in the middle of Michigan is great since its a peek into what a farm vet's life is like for me and is that what I want to be when I'm done studying.

Since he is in an area with a large dairy cow presence in the farms, he often assists on cow births on the dairy farm (cows need to give birth to initiate lactation to give us milk - just in case you were wondering) and there has been quite a few occasions where he encounters a Prolapse Uterus.


Now what is a prolapse uterus?
Basically its the uterus moving from inside the cow to the outside of the cow if the cow makes too much effort pushing out the calf and keeps on pushing til the uterus pops out.

Here is a nice site that describes it pretty well (and has no photos for those with a weak stomach)
http://www.sites.ext.vt.edu/newsletter-archive/livestock/aps-07_02/aps-405.html
There are videos on this plus pictures you can google.

It is also an issue as
1) the cow will DIE if the uterus does not go back in (cow = $$ to the farmer)
2) the cows weigh easily 500kg so the uterus is easily 18 kg (this was mentioned in the show)
3) the uterus is quite delicate so shoving it back in takes some effort.

Overall this is a quite common problem with cows and if you are going to be a farm vet, well one of the things you would have to do is to 'fix' the issue with the prolapse uterus of cows.

Additional papers can be found here:
http://beefmagazine.com/mag/beef_prolapse_problems

Some 'light' reading on cows and their anatomy:
http://extension.missouri.edu/p/G2016
http://extension.missouri.edu/p/G2017
http://extension.missouri.edu/p/G2015
http://cal.vet.upenn.edu/projects/fieldservice/Dairy/perepro.htm

*disclaimer - I own none of the information from the sites I've included, if you are the owner of the sites and you want me to take the link down, please email me. I claim no credit on the information on those sites*