Emerging uterine pathogen associated with metritis and fever in dairy cows.

Metritis is one of the most important postpartum diseases in high producing dairy cows, and it has a negative effect on fertility, productivity, and welfare. Helcococcus ovis is an emerging uterine pathogen associated with metritis and fever in dairy cows. Even though H. ovis has been identified as a pathogen involved in several animal infections , there is very little available information about its genetic makeup. This study aims to isolate pure colonies of H. ovis from the reproductive tract of dairy cows with metritis and sequence their genomic DNA in order to better understand the role this bacteria plays in various infectious diseases of dairy cows.