[Fleecewife]

It must be nearly 20 years since we had a horn sufficiently badly broken to make it an emergency vet job.  Now we've had two.  We think two shearling tups (both breeding stock) were having a little head banging session, got their side horns tangled together, and in their efforts to get away from each other, the horns were twisted off.  The first one needed to go down to the vet immediately as he had an arterial gout, the second looked as if the horn might recover, albeit in a poor position.  However, he then knocked it even more, so that became another vet job.

The first was sedated, the second had local anaesthetic, both required cautery and a pressure bandage.  They have also been given LA antiB and LA pain killer.

They used a product I'd not seen before, which is an aluminium spray-on dressing, to cover the site.  Apparently it's great for small wounds, grazed bits and so on.  It gradually gets worked off as the wound heals up.  I bought a can    You tend to get lovely shiny fingernails too.

I've changed the first lads dressing once, and the hole in his head was healing nicely. I'm just about to go and see if he has healed well enough that he can just have the spray    The other I'll leave undisturbed for a few days before I have a look, and keep him separated from the rest of the boys.

Usually with a broken horn it's something you can deal with yourself, but it's worth being able to recognise when it needs local anaesthetic and cautery, which is beyond most of us.

[Anke]

Yep, my vet used the shiny stuff on the disbudding sites this year. He asked me if it was any better than the usual blue spray they were using. I found it dries faster and the wounds did heal well, although not sure if any quicker than in past years...

Looks like the reps have been doing the rounds in the Borders and Lanarkshire then...

[Foobar]

Silver aluminium isn't it?  (silver having antibacterial properties)
I've seen it used on horses.  I might have to get myself some for my dog .

[Bramblecot]

I might get some for the OH

[Fleecewife]

We've just got the bill for the first tup's treatment - £25.  That's not bad at all, considering the amount of time, effort and supplies they used on him.  It helped that we took him down to the vet rather than calling him out.

[devonlady]

Silver aluminium isn't it?  (silver having antibacterial properties)
I've seen it used on horses.  I might have to get myself some for my dog .

Oh dear! What's wrong with the dog?

[Marches Farmer]

I use plastic wound spray (for humans) - expensive but effective.  Aluminium sounds good, though.

[devonlad]

We had a complete snapped horn down to the base with fountains of blood just a few weeks after getting our first 3 weaned lambs 6 years ago. Its the only time a vet has been here. Anaesthetic and cauterising. All these years later Florence still going strong though her horn never grew back straight so she'd never win best in show

[Whittsend]

What is the best way to treat the core of a horn when the outer sheath has been pulled off?. Dylan, the Welsh Mountain wether I hand reared last year, has only got small horns ( about 2 inches max) but he has pulled the outer sheath off the same horn three times. Twice last year and has just done it again, last night in fact. I assume he catches it in stock fencing but he does indulge in some very minor head butting with my Ryelands on occasions! The last twice it just left a bloody core and this time it did trickle some blood, but nothing alarming. I sprayed the core and surrounding base with Leucillin, which is a general anti bacterial, anti viral spray and then sprayed with purple spray.  Looking through some similar threads I gather that cobwebs work well at stopping bleeding but it does seem to have dried well. I am just wondering if this will be an ongoing problem, because he has been castrated and the horn does not develop properly,  or is there something about the way I have treated it that causes it to have a weak connection?

[twizzel]

I had a ram lamb break a horn yesterday like you describe whittsend and once it had stopped bleeding sprayed with alamycin spray and put a bit of summer fly cream around the base and on that side of his face. Seems to be doing the trick and he's happy enough today. Not sure if it's a weakeness as both of the lambs with broken horns that I've had have been entire although this one that happened yesterday is questionable as his stones never dropped/could never be felt.

[Fleecewife]

Wether's horns do tend to be weak and fragile.  I suspect Dylan is catching his in the fence and ripping it off that way.  The horn core does need to be protected from fly strike, as well as stopping the bleeding.  When it's just the outer bit which comes off, the bleeding isn't usually severe but can be a bit messy.  It's when a mature tup's hefty horns are ripped off at the head, rupturing the major arteries which supply the horn core, that bleeding can kill the animal unless you can pinch the artery for at least 5 minutes and get it to stop that way.
In ewes, weak horns seem to be hereditary.  We had a Soay line prone to weak horns in the females.  As they also passed on to their lambs to stick their heads through the sheep mesh, because the grass is always greener on the other side, they all had ripped off horn outers, and even more stumpy horns 

[Whittsend]

Thanks for your replies, Fleecewife and Twizzle. Sorry for not replying earlier but  I had a computer problem, so I was  unable read them until this evening.  I have been checking him several times a day and the core has dried completely. I did spray around the base with barrier blow fly repel the morning after he pulled it off, and, fortunetly,  we had a couple of wet, windy days immediately after it happened- which has kept the flies away.
I looked at summer fly cream in Wynnstay last week, I think I will buy some tomorrow, as a useful additon to the meds cabinet  I think you are right about how he keeps doing it Fleecewife. He is a real character and into everything.   Dylan comes running when he is called ( like a dog), spends half his day browsing the hedges, on his hind legs,( like a goat)  and generally pokes his head into anything that looks interesting and could possibly  result in a mouthful of food! ( pockets, bags, wheelbarrows, etc). One of my coloured Ryeland girls did try to copy his hind leg technique, to reach some new hawthorn leaves, but it was 'a bridge too far' for her little, dumpy legs. Maybe it's a Welsh Mountain Sheep thing. So far this year I have had to release four of my neighbours welsh Mountain lambs from the stock fencing behind our house, after they have got their heads stuck, eating the grass on our side of the fence, even though they have tens of acres to graze on their own side! 
Hopefully he will only ever pull the sheath off his horn and not the whole horn. That sounds a bit drastic! Thanks again.

[Fleecewife]

Sounds like Dylan the sheep-goat-dog creature is finding his inner Soay/Shetland/Jacob, which all exhibit exactly those behaviours.  It's amazing how tall a Jacob can make itself, even a Soay reaches surprisingly high.

[Fleecewife]

  for the aluminium spray.
I changed the dressing on Eddy the second tuplet to break a horn, today.  I had left the vet's dressing for 8 days before checking it.  This is the one which was sprayed with aluminium spray before his pressure dressing was applied.  I was very impressed with how well the wound was healing, clean and healthy.  Had there not been so many biting flies around I would have left it exposed, with just the aluminium spray on, but the flies were everywhere so I wanted to keep them out, so rebandaged with a zebra striped (!) self cling bandage and a non stick dressing over the aluminium spray.  I think it will be completely ok after 4 or 5 more days.  The other lad is doing fine.
The aluminium spray had disappeared from the open wound, but had set hard where it had sprayed on wool.  Next dressing change I'll trim off the metal bits, but today none of us wanted to hang around and be bitten to death by flies.