Data from: Disbudding dairy calves with caustic paste: Assessing the effect of contact duration on the healing process

The prevalence of paste disturbance from the calf rubbing a horn bud was observed 1 h and 4 h (normal calves only) after application. Wound diameter was measured 1 d after disbudding and 5 wk later. We evaluated the presence and absence of 8 tissue types and horn regrowth 1-2x/wk for 21 wk.

Paste disturbance showed no evidence of differing by treatment (17% vs 23% of horn buds for normal and wiped, respectively, 1 h after application). Disturbance from rubbing did not affect wound size or healing time. Wound diameter was similar between application methods: wounds were (mean ± SE) 18.9 ± 0.5 and 20.1 ± 0.8 mm 1 d after disbudding and 5 wk later increased to 22.7 ± 0.6 and 23.0 ± 0.8 mm for normal and wiped treatments, respectively.

There was no evidence that treatment affected the probability of advancing to the next stage for the 3 tissue types (63 vs. 73% crust, 47 vs. 57 % epithelium, and 40 vs 33% fully healed for normal vs. wiped). Calves with wiped horn buds tended to have more horn regrowth, including regrowth that required removal by a secondary procedure, compared to the normal treatment. Across both treatments, wounds took longer to heal in this study than in previous work: only 37% had fully healed by 21 wk compared with 74% of wounds created by a similar amount of paste in another study.

In conclusion, wiping paste after 1 h did not reduce disturbance from rubbing, wound size, or hasten healing, and tended to increase the risk of regrowth compared to letting it absorb.</p>