Differential diagnosis of chronic infertility in high-yield cows

Abstract

The infertility of cows and heifers has been the most pressing problem in the livestock sector. The genitals and mammary gland have an increased functional load associated with pregnancy, childbirth, and lactation. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of symptoms of chronic irreversible infertility in Ayrshire cows culled as a result of multiple artificial inseminations. The study employed analytical, structural-comparative, and statistical methods, as well as a modified differential palpation diagnosis of the clinical state of the reproductive organs in the ovary+oviduct area with lateral localisation was consistently applied in two stages. The findings of the study showed that cows with in vivo diagnosed symptoms of chronic adherent salpingitis and ovosalpingitis (52.17%), i.e., irreversible form of infertility, had significantly higher (+28.05%; P < 0.01) milk production and better lactation compared to those without these pathologies. Furthermore, in the group of cows culled due to numerous ineffective inseminations, related gonadopathies were detected: from 4.35% to 10.87% of ovarian hypotrophy, 4.35% of gonadal sclerosis symptoms and 17.39% of cystic follicular degeneration cases. In 73.91% of females, the presence of sexual cyclicity with unchanged ovarian function in the follicular phase and in 84.78% – in the luteal phase of the cycle was established. The use of differential palpation diagnostics in production conditions allows in vivo predicting the tendency to loss of genetic resources (the ability of cow ovaries to maintain generative and secretory functions) in highly productive cows due to chronic inflammatory gynecological pathologies, which will contribute to the improvement of drug and biotechnological schemes of therapeutic measures for the prevention of infertility in the dairy herd