Longhorn - broken horn

[THEBUS]

One of my heifers recently broke her horn off about 5" from the tip. Now there is flesh looking tip - looks like the end of your finger - sticking about 1 1/2" out of the end of the horn. She has busted the fleshy thing twice and it bleeds pretty good. Any suggestions on what to do?

Thanks,

Clif

 

[bigbull338]

the only thing that you might want to do is spay it with wound dressing. but i really think she will be ok like she is. just going to take time for it to heal up. i would keep an eye on her tho . scott

 

[stocky]

She should be fine, the horn will always show damage, but it will heal just fine. The thing that you have to watch for this time of year is the flies. Like Scott said, spray it with wound dressing. If the flies get started after the blood, you will have screw worms, if you keep them out, she should be fine

 

[THEBUS]

Here is a pic of the heifer

 

[THEBUS]

Here is a closeup

 

[THEBUS]

Sorry!

http://people.txucom.net/cendet/Pic2.JPG

 

[stocky]

After looking at that pic, there is no doubt in my mind she will be fine. I would still shoot some wound dressing or screw worm bomb in there to keep the flies out

 

[bigbull338]

she is a very pretty heifer. her tipp isnt in that bad of shape . id spray the wound dressing on it for a few days to keep flies out an let it heal. scott

 

[THEBUS]

How will it heal? Will it grow around the tip that's there or will she eventually rip that little tip off and just have a hole there?

 

[stocky]

I believe the little soft tip will wear off and the hole will fill in and the horn will continue to grow but it will be blunt a the end like the tip was sawed off.

 

[Rustler9]

I don't think that there will be a hole there. It should eventually just heal with a solid break if that makes sense. I would probably spray something on it like the other folks advised. Here's a picture of one of my bulls that broke his horn, but it's not a close up so you may not be able to tell much about it. He broke about 4" off. But anyway, the break is basically just a clean beak kind of like it was sawed off.

 

[simcross]

I wonder if you should cut the end off so the outside is even with the inside it might heal up faster.

With other cattle if you cut the horns off when they are weaned the horn will grow back curved downwards.

Maybe if you tipped the other horn also both horns will match

 

[Ryan]

She will be fine. The tipped horn will always be a little different than the non-tipped, however since she is still at such a young age there is a chance it could grow out of the tip. We had a young cow tip her horn off a couple inches, but since her horns were still growing she actually regrew that tip. Her broken side looks completely normal, just a couple inches shorter.

Ryan

 

[THEBUS]

I've seen some horns with a knot or hump in them. Will the tip where it has ripped and bent up make the horn grow that way or will it straighten itself out? I'm just curious how the horn grows - does it add layers from the inside?

 

[Ryan]

IMO It's hard to tell how the horn will grow back. We've had cases where the tip broke off and the animal always looked that way, however we've also had a couple cases where the tip broke off and the tip regrew from inside the horn.

Ryan

 

[Brandon]

We had a cow to break her horn also and she is fine she looks funny now with only one horn :lol: but she is ok.

 

[simcross]

These horns were cut at the base and this is how they grew back.
This is the second time the horns were cut the first time the horns grew back this same way and started to go into her head so were cut again.