Plasma beta endorphin profile of dairy cows and buffaloes with eutocia and dystocia

ABSTRACT

This investigation was performed on 16 pluriparous dairy cows and 14 buffaloes, eight of the dairy cows and seven of the buffaloes had dystocia and the others had normal birth. Blood samples were collected during fetal expulsion from all animals in heparinized vacutainer tubes, plasma was obtained by cooling centrifuge and kept frozen at 20 degree C until hormonal assay. A special radioimmunoassay technique was adopted for determination of plasma beta endorphin levels. The results revealed highly significant rise [P<0.01] of beta endorphin levels in both the cows [813.65 +/- 88.80 pg/ml] and buffaloes [894.68 +/- 42.77pg/ml] having dystocia when compared with the cows [104.28 +/- 10.31 pg/ml] and buffaloes [90.94 +/- 7.63 pg/ml] that had normal birth