Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 202, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 August 1919 — USE CARE AFTER DEHORNING [ARTICLE]

USE CARE AFTER DEHORNING

Pains Should Be Taken That No Foreign Substances Get Into Openings After Operation. (Prepared by the United States Department of Agriculture.) It is not usual to apply any preparation after the operation of dehorning to present bleeding, as the loss of blood is not sufficient, as a rule, to be of consequence. Care should be taken, however, to prevent substances from getting into the openings left after the horns are removed. The horn cores are elongations of the frontal bones of the skull, and are hollow. They communicate w’ith the frontal sinuses, or air spaces of the head; therefore foreign substances or fragments of horn which act as an irritant in these cavities are apt to set up an inflammation, resulting in the formation of pus or an abscess, w’hich may prove quite serious. This trouble is of infrequent occurrence, but would appear more liable to happen when the dehorning instruments are used, on account of their tendency to crush, especially in the case of old animals, whereas the saw cuts clean. If proper care is taken, however, such an occurrence following dehorning- may in almost every instance be avoided. —— If the animals are dehorned in warm weather, it is well to apply some pine tar with a view? to keeping flies from the wounds. Some operators do this in nearly all cases, thinking that it facilitates healing. The dehorning operation should always, when possible, be performed in cool weather, amT upon animals which have at least attained the age of two years.