Risk factors for clinical endometritis and its effects on reproductive performance in dairy cattle

Abstract

Endometritis is one of the most prevalent uterine infection in dairy cattle that affects reproductive performance by decreasing fertility and leading to high economic losses. The objectives of this study were to assess the risk factors for clinical endometritis and its subsequent effects on reproductive performance in Holstein Friesian cows. The study was conducted in two dairy farms from Belgium, where 682 animals were enrolled, during two years of study. All data were processed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 17. The Pearson correlation revealed positive correlations between endometrits and postpartum disorders like dystocia, placental retention, milk fever, metritis and ovarian pathologies (persistent corpus luteum) (p<0.01). As expected, a moderate positive correlation was found between endometritis and voluntary waiting period (p<0.05). Regarding the analyzed reproductive indices, endometritis was positively correlated with reproduction period, service period, calving interval and inseminations number/pregnancy (p<0.01). A negative correlation was found between endometritis and pregnancy rate (p<0.05) as well as other weak correlations between this pathology and other parameters taken under study. We conclude that the risk factors for clinical endometritis in cattle are mainly caused by postpartum disorders with detrimental effects on reproductive performance, as the affected cows take longer to become pregnant by extending calving to conception intervals and increasing the risk for culling.