Shoulder Gash

Well I wasn’t sure if I should post this here or in animal health but I guess since I need direct Oxen advice I’ll post here. So…. yesterday was just one of the days were everything goes wrong. The creek flooded, I had to change clothes three times, the trailer lights wouldn’t work, and worst of all my off steer somehow got a massive gash on his shoulder. It must have happened over night and we think the culprit was a salt box with a jagged metal roof. The roof has been fixed, but the steer was pretty seriously injured. The cut was about 4 inches long and actually went back under the skin and the vet said he could touch the shoulder bone! We took him in right away and got stitches, internal and external. From the outside it looked bad but when the vet started to clean it out it got deeper.

Of course this is the worst place for an ox to get hurt. It does not directly contact the yoke, or at least I don’t think it would. But it is right there where he is placing force. They won’t be working for a while now, but my questions are how concerned do I need to be about this injury? when can I yoke him again? and will this effect him in the future?

The vet has no clue about oxen as I am probably the only one he has ever seen train steers. But he was impressed at how tame the boys were. I brought both in for moral support. It was also there first time in the trailer, they are now too big for the back of the truck. Lots of excitement. But Joseph did great. He stood and only got fidgety a couple of times. The vet said that they stood better than some horses he has worked on. I thought that to be a pretty compliment.

Here are a couple of pictures before and after. I just hope this isn’t a major problem as these guys are really starting to come along well.