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I planted several Dayton apple trees for an espalier this spring. Today I noticed some critter damage to one. It's nearly girdled all the way around.

*edit - I have some dormant Dayton scion wood. Should I try a bridge graft or should I try cutting below the damage to see if a shoot will develop from the relatively undamaged side of the trunk?

Any discussion welcome.

Ooh what a bummer -- I lost a productive mature espaliered Pristine apple tree a couple of years ago ...still mad at myself for not making sure that the tree guard was secure in the previous fall and during the winter.

It looks like there is upper growth -- never tried bridge grafting, but wow yeah, if I had that option, I would definitely try it.

I really wonder if the efforts of a bridging graft would be worth it J.
Leave it for a month and see how much your tree is affected by the damage. There may be more cambium layer left than you think.
If the tree is suffering after that time then I would replace it at such a young time in its life,
Trunk damage on a young tree can be a permenant brake on its growth for the rest of its life.
That said.....
Bridging grafts are fun to do and I've seen trees with several grafts done and the old damaged centre is then removed to make triple trunked tree...very impressive.

One other thing J.
For a guard around the tree....chicken wire is great as it lets you keep an eye on the trunk for any problems. The plastic guards are ok but you can forget to check what's going on behind them.

I've successfully done a bridge graft on an apple that had been completely girdled by a weedeater. it's doing pretty well now. could be worth trying on the more-damaged side. I generally agree with jona that you could let it go and see what happens if there's some amount of bark left.

Thanks everyone - After thinking about it a bit more, I'll go ahead and replace it. This is part of an espalier fence of 5 trees and I'd like them to be as uniform as possible. If I let it go a month and it doesn't do well, my window for replacing it in 2016 would probably be closed. I painted the other 4 with some white latex last night and I'll make hardware cloth tubes as well.

I'll replant the damaged one and try a bridge graft on it.

I cage most of my orchard trees against deer, but that's been about it so far. Now it looks like I need to start protecting against little critters too.