wound care advice

[gwithrow]

one of our heifers cut herself badly on a piece of tin, back leg from about 6 inches above the hoof to right above the hoof...anyway the vet came and gave her tetanus and Baytril and sewed a bleeder and said the front tendons are pretty much destroyed.....this was a week ago, she is up in a small pen with a shed for shade..she is one of the wildest heifers we have had, very skittish, and of course had to be tranquilized for the vet....now after a week she is calmer if I am the only one around and she certainly eagerly waits for feed and new hay...she will let me get pretty close, but not really close enough to touch the leg...and I am respectful of how big she is and how fast she can spin around...I have been spraying the injury with our garden sprayer and a solution of povidone iodine and some epsom salts...it is a a quiet sprayer and doesn't seem to upset her..here is my question?: is there a better way to help this heal? it looks pretty nasty, and will always be a big knob, but it is so raw looking...I also spray lightly with fly spray....I would love to hear what has worked for others caring for injured cows...they are just not like dogs and cats that will understand that you want to help them...thanks..gwithrow

[agmantoo]

What you are doing sounds fine to me.

[DaleK]

Sounds pretty good to me too. Depending what she's eating you might be able to break an aspirin up into it once in a while too.

[travlnusa]

As the others said, keep doing what you are doing

[de Molay]

Any animal that I can not doctor myself or will not let me approach is a cull, as soon as she is healed, ship her.

[gwithrow]

the bad place is looking better, I spray twice a day with the Iodine and epsom salt solution...and after that I spray with the spray on bandage...silver...looks kind of snazzy out there in that pen....til she licks it off...she is eating well and has calmed down and while I haven't tried to touch the bad place, she certainly doesn't move away and I can get right up to it to spray and look at it...however....there is still a crack at the top where the beginning of the cut starts...when she lifts her foot it comes open some...and there is a small amount of pus the oozes from that...I can't irrigate down in there since it is closed up when she is standing and eating and I am spraying....does she need an antibiotic? and if so, is there something I can put in her feed or water...she is to be a brood cow and will not be bred til late fall...she is getting rumicult 40 and a topping of calf manna on her feed as well as hay....I hope she knows how special she is becoming...the others out there have surely complained that they don't get the royal treatment...thanks for any additional help..gwithrow