Department of Veterinary Surgery and Radiology, College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, Anand-388 001 (Gujarat)
Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University, Bidar-585 401 (Karnataka)
The liquid nitrogen cryotherapy was evaluated for cryosurgical disbudding in 60 clinically healthy crossbred calves of either sex, aged between 03 and 07 weeks, at −10°C or −20°C cryofreezing using overlapping freezing-thawing and double cycles of freezing followed by thawing, with or without the use of anaesthesia. Six calves each were used for evaluation of two different modalities at two different levels of cryofreezing with or without the use of anaesthesia. Ketoprofen @ 2 mg/kg body wt, i.m. was given for preemptive analgesia. The calves were sedatedadditionally using xylazine @ 0.2 mg/kg body wt, i.m. Later, under cornual nerve block the calves were subjected to cryofreezing as per experimental design. The horn buds showed progressive tendency of drying and sloughing, which later got detached from the site around 28–30 days following cryosurgical disbudding indicating a complete healing. The animals subjected to −20°C cryofreezing using overlapping freezing-thawing modality showed comparatively lower rate of recurrence.
