Anyone w/ experience w/ frozen hooves on valuable calves?

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truongthanh

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Joined
Jun 12, 2015
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My situation is that we had a heifer calf born into a blizzard about five weeks ago. While otherwise healthy (she's nursing, alert, can hobble around reasonably well), her right rear hoof has never been right.

This morning when I was out with them, I was watching her real close -- and saw the first stages of what appears to be her shedding her hoof (it's always been swollen; today I saw two sores and some blood). nhac chuong mien phi

This heifer was well over half the reason we bought her mama ... and, so we'd like to do what we can to salvage the reproduction value of this little heifer. We're considering any and all options to get eggs out of her, fertilized and into recips.

My questions relate to things to look for, treatment protocols, etc. to get her old enough to either harvest her ovaries (to either freeze or to harvest immediately) ... or ... to get her past weaning to sexual maturity and try to flush her then.

I'm pretty sure that five weeks old isn't old enough to harvest the ovaries or to try an IVF procedure of some sort (but, I'd be happy to find out that I'm wrong), and so, I wouldn't mind help from anyone who's lived with a calf prior to, during and after the sloughing of the hoof. Treatment, management, etc.?

There just aren't that many people south of Kansas City with much in the way of practical expertise on managing a calf who lost a hoof from frostbite. Anyone from the frozen tundra care to help out?

Thanks for any help. Feel free to PM me if you'd rather take this offline.

PS -- I'm not looking for "shoot her" type comments. While that may be what we do, I'd like to look into other options first.  :)
 
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