Abstract
Oxytetracycline is commonly applied as a topical agent to burn lesions post cautery disbudding of calves. Judicial use of antibiotics dictates that they should only be used where necessary to reduce the development of resistance in target bacteria. The objective of this study, therefore, was to evaluate the efficacy of topical oxytetracycline spray on wound healing post cautery disbudding of dairy calves over a 6-week period. Dairy calves were disbudded by veterinarians, technicians, or veterinary surgeons, using a standard cautery disbudding protocol. Oxytetracycline spray was randomly applied to the right or left horn bud of each animal (OXY), while the other horn bud received no antibiotic spray (NA). The outcomes measured were wound diameter (WD) and lesion score (LS), either normal healing (NH) or abnormal healing (AH). These assessments were conducted every 14 days following disbudding, until 42 days. A total of 360 animals completed the study. There was a difference in wound diameter and lesion score on day 14 post disbudding between the two groups. Cautery lesions sprayed with oxytetracycline (OXY) were 0.5 ± 0.15 mm smaller than NA lesions (P = 0.001), and there were fewer abnormal healing lesions for OXY compared to the NA (2.5 vs. 11%, respectively; P ≤ 0.001). There were no differences at day 28 and day 42 post disbudding, and on day 42, 34% of wounds had healed in both groups.In summary, the authors were unable to demonstrate a difference in healing between the groups using the described methods.
Highlights
Disbudding dairy calves is a common procedure necessary for modern farm management of cattle to prevent injuries, improve safety, and reduce housing space requirements
One investigator (RR) made 891/1,083 assessments of wound diameter (WD) and lesion score (LS), and the remaining 192 assessments were made by another investigator (AT)
On day 28 post disbudding, on average across all farms, the wound diameter for OXY was no different in size to no antibiotic spray (NA) (P = 0.89), and farm had no effect on whether there was a difference between OXY and NA (P = 0.35)
Summary
Disbudding dairy calves is a common procedure necessary for modern farm management of cattle to prevent injuries, improve safety, and reduce housing space requirements. Sheil et al (8) assessed the same topical local anesthetic and antiseptic gel as Stilwell and Laven (7). They found that the product did not adversely affect wound healing and that there was a reduced incidence of abnormal wounds 11–12 days post disbudding in the treated calves compared to a saline placebo. It has not, been reported in the literature how topical oxytetracycline aerosol spray used post disbudding would affect wound healing compared with no application of any topical agent
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