Musculoskeletal - Image 4

Umbilical hernia in a heifer. Umbilical hernia is the most common congenital defect in cattle. In a large study of congenital defects based on data from 10 university clinics (AJVR 31:1871) , there were 104 umbilical hernias among 533 bovine congenital defects. Some have speculated that the stress of pulling calves in dystocia cases may cause enlargement of the umbilical vascular opening in the body wall. In other species “pulling out” newborns is less common. Although unrelated to the hernia, this image shows a well developed subcutaneous abdominal vein (arrows)