How do you treat a calf with broken jaw?

Answer 1

The short answer is, you don't; mature horses with broken weight-bearing leg bones do not heal well (or at all), are generally in excruciating amounts of pain and are often a danger to themselves or their handlers because they panic due to being restrained. However, a young foal (6 months old or younger) with a greenstick fracture or a fracture of a non-weight-bearing bone may be able to have the fracture reduced and tolerate corrective equipment (cast, splint, etc.) until the bone heals.

This is where the folk wisdom of shooting (ie, mercy killing) a horse with a broken leg comes from: there is little that can be done to keep the horse safe, comfortable and immobile for the months it would take for the bone to heal up enough to support the animal's weight.

I have seen this tried, on a six year old Arabian stallion with a compound open fracture of the proximal radius. He freaked out when put into a body sling to help support his weight and broke an equine vet resident's ribs. He had multiple surgeries to realign the bone fragments, put antibiotics into the break site to prevent bone infection, pull out dead bone fragments and put transverse supporting pins through the distal humerus. The owner spent over $10,000 on surgeries, X-rays, hospitalization and daily care, the break never healed and the stallion was eventually euthanized.

Answer 2

With cows or bulls, often fixing a broken limb isn't worth the costs invested in getting the treatment to fix such an injury or the labour and time involved in getting it to heal properly. Most, if not all, cows and bulls (and even older calves, at least those that are considered yearlings) are euthanized if they get a broken leg and are inambulatory. If the break is serious then it is best to put them down on the spot. If the animal does have a broken leg and is still able to move around on the other three legs, that animal is better off for the freezer than being put back into the cowherd again. Primarily, only calves that get a broken leg are treated.

Thus, if you wish to try and treat the leg you will need to splint the leg, and can be done as follows:

First, check to see if there is any puncture wound where the bone might have penetrated through the skin. If there is no puncture through the skin, then it is probably a small fracture and will heal nicely. Carefully wrap the leg with an ace wrap, soft cloth or foam. Make sure you get the wrap tight enough that it won't fall off, but not to tight to cut the circulation off. Also wrap it thick enough so that it provides enough padding that the splint you are wanting to use will not rub the skin raw.

If the break is below the hock or on the front leg, it's ideal to use a straight-splint to keep the leg in place. Take a 1 ½" to 2" PVC pipe and split it vertically down the middle on two sides so that it splits into two equal pieces. Place the splint on the inside and outside of the leg to support the broken bone. Wrap the splint in place with cloth, then wrap and secure the splint into place with Duct Tape.

If the break is above the hock on the rear leg, use a dog splint (a splint that is wide at the top and tapers to a more narrow, longitudinal end) to keep the break in place. Do the same as mentioned above, only wrap the cloth as high up the leg as possible, placing the splint over the wrappings, then wrapping again and sealing with duct tape. It may be a good idea to wrap all the way down the leg to the hoof so that the entire leg is stable.

Calves grow remarkably fast, so you will have to redo the dressings in a week or two. If you do not reset the dressings the calf will get sores on the leg and the splint and wrappings will cut off the circulation to the rest of the leg, slowing healing process.

You will need to keep the calf separated from the other cattle in a quiet, dry and warm location so he is not stimulated as much to be active nor be bothered by other cows and calves that may push him around. Provide straw as bedding to keep the wound as clean as possible, and clean the place where the calf is staying at least once a day. Also make sure the calf's mother is nearby, but not in an area where the calf will get stepped on again by her, and let her in every few hours to let the calf nurse, or milk the cow and feed the calf with the cow's milk. However, the most cases of the calf getting stepped on again is if both the calf and the cow is put into an enclosure that is too small for either of them.

Most breaks of a calf's leg will heal in a matter of 3 to 4 weeks. With an older animal, the break will take longer to heal or, if it's very serious, will never heal. Get a vet's opinion on whether its possible for the wound to heal, and also keep your vet on speed dial if anything serious occurs from the wound, such as leakage, swelling, or if the calf is not wanting to get up and move around and/or is running a fever.

Answer 3

Ideally, you would have a veterinarian take care of this for you - if you set the jaw wrong, you could cause the calf to have severe malnutrition problems for the rest of his life, as well as nerve damage or death from blood loss.

You will have to set the bone back to the way it was in the calf's jaw (if it's one of those compound fractures where the bone juts away from the rest of the jaw), and if there's some sort of blood-filled bruise or abscess, you can poke a sterile needle into it to try to drain some of it out. It may have solidified already, so it may be best to just leave it and hope it reabsorbs back into the calf's body.

Next, you will have to tape the calf's mouth shut. Duct tape may be the the best thing to keep the calf's jaw shut and in place, putting several layers of tap around his muzzle, back around his ears and behind is head to hold it in place, and then one up the middle of his face. It should be tight, but not too tight so that the calf can't breathe.

Young animals heal faster than adults do, so you may just have to leave the tape on for no more than a week or two. It's best to keep it on for two weeks to ensure the bones fully knit back together, just to be safe.

You will have to use a stomach tube to feed him. Put it down his nostril into his stomach (not his lungs!!) and feed him 3 times a day. After a few days the tape may stretch enough that he will be able to stick his tongue out and suckle from a bottle. Use a lamb nipple at first, then after a few days, switch to a calf nipple. He will thank you for it.

Answer 4

For a horse with a broken leg, you should try to get the horse to take as much weight as possible off the leg, and call an Equine veterinarian right away who can set up a call at a nearby equine surgical hospital. Your vet will most likely come out and wrap the horses leg and sedate it for the trip to the hospital. If the leg is repairable, then every attempt will be made to do so. If not however they will have to put the horse to sleep. If the leg has been operated on the horse would then need to stay at the hospital for quite some time to insure a recovery. Eventually the horse will be able to go home where it will need specialized care for a certain period of time. After everything has been done the horse may or may not be rideable.

Answer 5

take it to the wet and try to calm the dog down as every movement it makes will give it more pain.

Answer 6

Take it to your veterinarian. How you treat the calf depends on whether the calf has a broken leg or dislocated joint.

Answer 7

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