Abstract
Elevating the hind legs and lowering the animals into a lying position easily corrects uterine torsion in dairy cows. The animals were laid so that the direction of torsion was uppermost, then the hind legs were tied together with rope positioned immediately above the fetlocks. A tractor hoist raised the rear half of the body to a height of about 1 meter. The specialist in charge held the fetus via the parturient canal as the animal was gently lowered again, thus correcting the torsion. No anesthesia was used in any of these procedures. Over a period of 3 years, 35 cows (28 with left torsion and 7 with right torsion) were treated in this way. In 29 of those cases, this method alone was used; of these, 23 calves lived after parturition and torsion correction. In 6 cases, the elevated-hind-legs method was combined with the mother-cow rotation method. Five of the 6 fetuses treated in this way died. In 4 cases in which more than 24 hours lapsed between torsion correction and parturition, all the fetuses were stillborn. In no instances were abnormalities observed in the mother cows during or immediately after torsion correction. Because it is fast and requires a small number of peolpe and no great physical strength, this method is considered highly useful for clinical application.
