# Flushing/Infusing the Uterus



## NorthOf49 (Feb 8, 2011)

K so I've read a few posts lately that refer to flushing or infusing the uterus. I get from GK 101 that you take 7cc LA200 (I have Biomycin, I assume it would work with that?) mix with 25cc sterile water (does the drinking water you get in a bottle from the store count as sterile?) and then use what to get it into the cervix? I mean, I have a speculum and nice light with it and everything, but what do you use that's stiff enough to be directed in? I'm seeing a big syringe hooked up to a clean fuel line hooked up to an AI-ing straw... at which point I can see this going sideways. And then what happens to that mixture? Do you have to squirt it right and left or just dump it just inside the cervix... does the doe expel it over time or does it slosh around in there indefinitely?


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

You can boil the water to get it sterile. No, I would not trust that a bottle of water was sterile. Medical supply companies also sell sterile water in vials like what vaccines come in and IV fluid type bags. I have one that I would like to flush, but I doubt I will be able to since I don't have the proper equipment. If done at kidding time, when the cervix is wide open, like right after expelling placenta, you could probably use a feeding tube, or any kind of tubing, as long as it doesn't have rough edges.


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## NorthOf49 (Feb 8, 2011)

Yah, I'm doing some more reading now and found an article where it says if you do it right after kidding as preventative you can just reach in with a hand and empty the syringe full before the placenta is expelled. But what if you don't find the infection until the next fall? Meh, here's that other article I found: (the link is http://goats.wetpaint.com/page/Metritis+(uterine+infections),+when,+how+to+treat+them) I'm not sure if this counts as 'reproducing for publication'. If it does, let me know and I can delete the post or if a mod sees it, just delete away.

FRESHENING: UTERINE INFECTIONS FOLLOWING ASSISTED BIRTHS... 
(How best to treat them?) 
By Sue Reith.

A goat owner writes: 
>>I have a question about treating uterine infections...Could you define early post kidding???Is thatwithin 24 hours, 48 hours? I have only seen infections after about72 hours,when the infection manifests itself visuallywith discharge etc.<<

I'm glad you brought this up! I'd never recommend waiting to treat a post-partum uterine infection until it's actually detectable. The fact is, I disagree 100% with the idea of waiting at all after assisting at a birth to lavage the uterus with the diluted oxytetracycline. I'm a firm believer in the idea that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!" If I have to go into the uterus to assist with a birthing, as soon as the kids are out (without even waiting for the afterbirth to be expelled) I 'palm' a 35cc syringe filled with 7cc of oxytetracycline 200diluted with sterile saline solution, put my gloved hand back into the doe, and expel the entire 35cc of liquid into the wide open uterine cavity. As the uterine muscle continues contractions to expel the afterbirth, the stuff gets sloshed around nicely inside there. And any opportunistic bacterium that even dares to think about starting an infection in there quickly throws up its hands, yells "I give up" and croaks on the spot. They never get an instant to think about setting up shop in a uterus belonging to adoe of mine, trust me!

However, it wasn't always this way. Early in my goat experience I, like most new goat owners, followed the incredibly off-target 'advice' for feeding late-gestation does being disseminated by the veterinary community (a body of individuals that, for the most part, don't have a scrap of nutritional background). It took many years (and lots of 'learning by doing') to realize that the veterinary info on nutrition was totally off base. But meanwhile, until I finally figured it out, my hypocalcemic-late-gestation does had me going into uteruses on a pretty regular basis to extract kids from moms that, lacking sufficient calcium, simply didn't have the muscle tone to do the job themselves. Then, sure enough, about a week or two following many of those birthings I was discovering that pinkish-yellowish discharge that says, 'metritis'.

By then I'd learned how to do my own A-I's, and had taught the subject at UC Davis in seminars as well. In the process I met Dr Joe Bondurant, the small ruminant reproductive specialist up there... So I called Joe, and told him what the situation was. Fortunately, my A-I knowledge and equipment came in handy. Knowing that,he suggested right away that I put the A-I speculum in there, insert an A-I sheath thru the cervix (still soft and open due to the infection), attach that 35cc syringe with diluted oxytet 200to the sheath, and infuse it right into the uterus... I did that for about 4 days in a row, because by then, of course,I was having to treat an infection, not prevent it. It worked like a charm.

Well it didn't take treating too many of those after-birthing infections for me to figure out that if I routinely put that diluted oxytetracycline 200 in the uterus immediately following an assisted delivery, instead of waiting until an infection was already brewing,it would never get started in the first place! So the routine became automatic... As soon as the last kid was out, and before the afterbirth was even expelled (which always took a very long time because of the lack of muscle tone, the result of the doe's hypocalcemic state) I'd put my gloved hand back in there, expel the diluted oxytetracycline contents of that 35cc syringe into the wide open space, and that was that.

An advantage of the 'intensive management' approach I use with my dairy does is that I'm able to handle a metritis-treatment process alone, in my own milk parlor, whereas those with a more casual management approach might find it much tougher to get a meat-goat doe to cooperate while trapped on a milking stanchion for treatment, not to mention how difficult it might be to even have an opportunity to notice a uterine infection when it first started brewing...For this reason I suspect that the metritis 'prevention' approach, taking the time to flush the uterus of a meat goat doe while she's down and vulnerable during birthing, would be an especially good choice for those who practice more casual management.

Sue Reith
Carmelita Toggs
Bainbridge Island WA 
[email protected]

(While I urge you to share this information with other individual goat owners, please do not reproduce the article for publication without my specific permission. Thank you. Sue Reith.)


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## swgoats (May 21, 2010)

In humans amoxicilin is the treatment for uterine infection. I have experience with this unfortunately. Started immediately the antibiotics should nip it in the bud quickly. My history has me starting on amoxicilin immediately to avoid more invasive intervention. My protocol for goats is to start penicillin immediately after any intervention. (I'm very low intervention though. Haven't needed to do this. *knock on wood*)

Placenta eating causes the uterus to contract more efficiently. If does that eat it are slower to clean out, I would suspect they are eating it due to the problem, rather than it causing the problem. I was horrified to see one doe turn around and start eating her partially detached placenta until I remembered that fact. Sure enough the placenta was soon delivered.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

For myself it's much more invasive to put a just fresh doe on penicillin or any antibiotic she likely doesn't need, when you can simply flush her uterus with tetracycline and water. Then take temps for a few day, much above her herd mates or a decrease in milk and yes I would use Naxcel.

The cervix is open from her just kidding, she has passed her placenta/s and you have decided to flush because you maneuvered kids around a lot and your hands were less than clean, or kids were dead, slurried (the gross out factor for infusing). Keep the biggest syringe you have on hand, squirt in 10cc of tetracycline and the rest water, put on a length of stiffer than aquarium tubing tube, and simply holding it in your fingers go up into the uterus and have someone pull the plunger, you can do this 3 or 4 times repeating the same dosages. They have larger (super soaker) looking syringes they use on mares, that holds more than a quart of water that is much more efficient. And just like the lochia everything comes out of the doe.

I do no think eating a placenta has anything to do with producing oxytocin...now pulling on your own placenta does because the placenta is still in the uterus, and any pressure of any kind around the cervix even from the placenta gives her contractions. 

If I am there I pick up placentas I like to go through them, mostly because we have multiples born, if you open a placenta you can see vividly how many umbilical cords are attached to said placenta and if you have to watch for another placenta or not. I also like to see if everything is intact and normal and also having my doe eat a whole big hunk of meat is going to suppress her ability to eat the grain I want her to eat to start milking. Vicki


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## swgoats (May 21, 2010)

Placenta contains prostaglandin and a small amount of oxytocin. Midwives sometimes have women put a piece in their cheek to stop heavy bleeding.


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

If I had a mid-wife tell me that I might do it, but I think it would be a little freaky. lol. Maybe I should have though, I hemorrhaged pretty bad when I had my baby. I passed out and went into shock...it was pretty scary.


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## swgoats (May 21, 2010)

Hemorrhage is not cool :-(


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