Interesting placenta??

JanetGeorge

JanetGeorge

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Shropshire/Worcs. borders
www.horseandhound.co.uk
Foaled a visiting mare last night and when I was checking the placenta found something 'interesting' as shown in the pic below.
twin.jpg


Between a golf ball and tennis ball in size - with definite 'crunchy' bits (bone?) inside. I think it was a twin that didn't progress past - perhaps 40 days - vet thinks the same. Any other ideas? The mare WAS scanned at 14 and 28 days (not by my vet!) and no twin found.
 
My semi-educated guess judging by your description and the position is yolk-sac remnant, which can be ossified leading to the "crunchy" feel. Ossified yolk sac remnants are apparently unique to the horse and range in size from very small to quite large. I may be wrong (anyone want to chime in?), but if it was a mummified twin, I would think it would be developing externally to the placenta, in a placenta of its own, rather than on the foetal side of the placenta.
 
Obviously you're better educated than me
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- I'd never heard of yolk sac remnants - and never seen one in the placentas I've checked - but I did a Google and I'd say you've hit the nail on the head! Thanks! I'd hate to think a stud vet had been so incompetent!
 
We had a yolk sac remnant for the first time this year and like you thought at first it was a twin remnant. Our stud vet put us wise and if you have Jonathan Pycocks gory self assessmant book its on page 73! You certainly never stop learning on this job.
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I'd also say it was a yolk sac - although a very large one. I once did a placenta check and dissection with Rossdales expert and she pointed these remenants out to me. You can find very small ones on many placentas, but you really have to search for them. Yours is definately in the right place.
But, we had a placenta that had a small bony lump attached to the membrane of the placenta. I kept it as I was curious, and the vet cut it up in the morning, scratched his head a little and took it back with him. Never did find out what it was. However, it was unlikely to be any twin remenant, as all ours are scanned.
 
My TB mare foaled on the 8th May; I sent her to a local stud since although she had had a foal before, this was my first foal and I was worried that if anything went wrong, I wouldn't know how to cope! Anyway, as with her first foal, she foaled quickly and without problem. However, the placenta contained what the stud's vet described as a "monster"! The stud manager, in his mid fifties, said he'd never seen anything like it before and described it as looking like a decoration off a Christmas tree!!! Apparently, it was a bony ball on a "string" and, when opened, it was filled with blood! Stud vet said it was rare in horses but fairly common in cattle. I received the stud vet's invoice yesterday and I quote........"When mare passed afterbirth there was a second globular structure +/- 10cm diameter (fetal remnant or calified yolk sac remnant?)."

She had originally been scanned with twin foals and one was pinched out but vet said it had nothing to do with that at all.

Trust Lizzie to be different!!! Mare and foal are lovely, by the way!
 
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