Effect of Prepartum Selenium Treatment on Uterine Involution in the Dairy Cow

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Abstract
Selenium injections and oral vitamin E supplementation prepartum were related to: 1) postpartum uterine involution (decrease in uterine size per unit time) and 2) days to minimum uterine size in a 2 .times. 2 factorial design. Complete data were analyzed from 64 cows. Groups were 1) selenium plus vitamin E, 2) vitamin E, 3) selenium, and 4) control. Factors significantly affecting uterine size between 14 and 50 d postpartum were cow weight, days postpartum-linear, days postpartum-quadratic, day .times. metritis, and day .times. metritis .times. selenium treatment. Days to minimum uterine size were significantly less in cows with metritis and selenium treated when compared with cows with metritis and not selenium treated (32.9 vs. 35.8).