A lot has happened in a short time..

[Judy-Ron]

Our lovely Mr. Snickers has had a time of it. We adopted him in June. He had his castration just before we bought him. He was six months old at the time. His castration was done by the burdizzo method and apparently one of the testicles didn't get done right... The one side was doing well but the other didn't shrink up at all. We talked to the breeder and she offered to redo the procedure or if we felt better about it to take him to the vet and have him banded. We have other boys who have been castrated by both methods and they seem to be fine so we opted to have him banded. When we were at our appointment we also asked about removing his scurs. The vet offered to do a two for one.. get him banded and remove the scurs. Now Snickers is a cute little fellow with the FONZ type hair tuft on his head.. Not any more. they shaved his head! Poor guy looked bald when we took him home. Now after a week his head is fuzzy and I'm sure he'll be looking back to normal soon (I hope) His banding was a huge success and he's up and around eating and head butting and playing around like nothing happened to him... Gotta love their resilience!

 

[River Buffaloes]

Mr Snickers is a lovely goat, but why remove his horns though? If we remove the horns of our goats, no one will give us a good price for them? Even deformed, broken or 'wrong' horns can reduce the price of the animals. Only recently people have started dehorning their cattle, but many people still prefer cows with beautiful horns. In Water Buffaloes removing horns is unthinkable.

Anyway I love these White goats, White color goats are always my favourite. Is he going to be a pet? I have heard that "goat yoga'' is a thing too.

 

[Bunnylady]

We have this idea that having horns on a goat, particularly a pet goat, is an invitation to trouble (especially in the form of injury to the owner). Even though my goats would never, ever have dared to butt me, I got my share of bruises from their horns, so I can see why people would think that. My goats also liked to butt fence posts or the walls of the barn, apparently just for the fun of it, which meant I had to do a lot of repairs. I also had one wether with a real mean streak; he would use his horns to snag the legs of the other goats, or deliberately get a horn under another goat's collar and twist (I saw him do this one time, and he nearly strangled his victim before I managed to get out to them and free her. After that, I removed the collars from the other goats). I've had friends whose goats would get their heads through stock fence, and then couldn't pull back through because of the horns, so they'd be stuck until their owner found and freed them . . . . So I readily understand when someone has a goat dehorned!

 

[chickens really]

Your little goats are adorable.
Glad his castration was fixed by banding. My little Buck was also done at 6 months by banding. He is now 9 months and a happy wether. Maybe his hairdo will grow in even thicker and he will really be adorable...

 

[Judy-Ron]

Mr Snickers is a lovely goat, but why remove his horns though? If we remove the horns of our goats, no one will give us a good price for them? Even deformed, broken or 'wrong' horns can reduce the price of the animals. Only recently people have started dehorning their cattle, but many people still prefer cows with beautiful horns. In Water Buffaloes removing horns is unthinkable.

Anyway I love these White goats, White color goats are always my favourite. Is he going to be a pet? I have heard that "goat yoga'' is a thing too.

There is a misconception here... We did not remove his horns. We purchased him at the tender age of six months but he had been disbudded as an infant by the breeder who shows 4H projects for her children. This goat was chosen as the project goat for her daughter so the horns had to be removed. She changed her mind and decided she wanted to show a promising doe instead. He was placed in the buck pen and not castrated until just before we bought him. What we were dealing with were the scurs that grow after a disbudding. Rather than have him knock them off himself and have them regrow we took him to the vet to have them permanently removed for his own safety and health.

 

[Judy-Ron]

[ There is a misconception here... We did not remove his horns. We purchased him at the tender age of six months but he had been disbudded as an infant by the breeder who shows 4H projects for her children. This goat was chosen as the project goat for her daughter so the horns had to be removed. She changed her mind and decided she wanted to show a promising doe instead. He was placed in the buck pen and not castrated until just before we bought him. What we were dealing with were the scurs that grow after a disbudding. Rather than have him knock them off himself and have them regrow we took him to the vet to have them permanently removed for his own safety and health. QUOTE="Bunnylady, post: 659796, member: 1254"]
We have this idea that having horns on a goat, particularly a pet goat, is an invitation to trouble (especially in the form of injury to the owner). Even though my goats would never, ever have dared to butt me, I got my share of bruises from their horns, so I can see why people would think that. My goats also liked to butt fence posts or the walls of the barn, apparently just for the fun of it, which meant I had to do a lot of repairs. I also had one wether with a real mean streak; he would use his horns to snag the legs of the other goats, or deliberately get a horn under another goat's collar and twist (I saw him do this one time, and he nearly strangled his victim before I managed to get out to them and free her. After that, I removed the collars from the other goats). I've had friends whose goats would get their heads through stock fence, and then couldn't pull back through because of the horns, so they'd be stuck until their owner found and freed them . . . . So I readily understand when someone has a goat dehorned!
[/QUOTE]

 

[River Buffaloes]

There is a misconception here... We did not remove his horns. We purchased him at the tender age of six months but he had been disbudded as an infant by the breeder who shows 4H projects for her children. This goat was chosen as the project goat for her daughter so the horns had to be removed. She changed her mind and decided she wanted to show a promising doe instead. He was placed in the buck pen and not castrated until just before we bought him. What we were dealing with were the scurs that grow after a disbudding. Rather than have him knock them off himself and have them regrow we took him to the vet to have them permanently removed for his own safety and health.

Oh yes now I see, Mr Snickers look very young in that picture. My bad!!! He is a handsome young goat non the less.

What kind of trees and bushes do you plant for goats? Where I live goats love the leaves of strangler fig, mahua, acacia, jackfruit, Sal, Mango, guava etc.

 

[Bunnylady]

[ There is a misconception here... We did not remove his horns. We purchased him at the tender age of six months but he had been disbudded as an infant by the breeder who shows 4H projects for her children. This goat was chosen as the project goat for her daughter so the horns had to be removed. She changed her mind and decided she wanted to show a promising doe instead. He was placed in the buck pen and not castrated until just before we bought him. What we were dealing with were the scurs that grow after a disbudding. Rather than have him knock them off himself and have them regrow we took him to the vet to have them permanently removed for his own safety and health. QUOTE="Bunnylady, post: 659796, member: 1254"]
We have this idea that having horns on a goat, particularly a pet goat, is an invitation to trouble (especially in the form of injury to the owner). Even though my goats would never, ever have dared to butt me, I got my share of bruises from their horns, so I can see why people would think that. My goats also liked to butt fence posts or the walls of the barn, apparently just for the fun of it, which meant I had to do a lot of repairs. I also had one wether with a real mean streak; he would use his horns to snag the legs of the other goats, or deliberately get a horn under another goat's collar and twist (I saw him do this one time, and he nearly strangled his victim before I managed to get out to them and free her. After that, I removed the collars from the other goats). I've had friends whose goats would get their heads through stock fence, and then couldn't pull back through because of the horns, so they'd be stuck until their owner found and freed them . . . . So I readily understand when someone has a goat dehorned!

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Ummm, what misconception? The question was, why were the horns removed, not who decided to do it. My answer was that it's considered a safety issue, for the people handling the goat, for the goat itself, and for other goats. And it is - 4H doesn't just think they are "prettier" that way, they are concerned about the safety of the children showing the goats. Obviously, most of my goats weren't dehorned, so I can attest to the fact that even with people-friendly goats, collisions between me and their horns did occur, and it was painful! (The scariest was one time when I leaned over to put a feed pan down, and the tip of one goat's horn caught me right on the brow bone. It hurt like the dickens, of course, but there was also the thought, "oh, lady, what nearly happened to you!") I actually asked to have Spike dehorned (disbudded) when he was castrated, but he was about 10 days old at the time and the vet wouldn't do it because they felt his horns were already too big for them to do a clean job of it. Many was the time that I regretted that delay - my sole remaining goat, which is now 18 years old, has a goose-egg-sized knot on her side from an awkwardly healed broken rib (most likely caused by a goat horn, and I'd give you odds it was Spike). After my herd matriarch died of old age, Spike and Luna (another doe) were vying for the top position in the herd, and Luna suddenly turned up dead one morning - though I can't prove it, I believe Spike killed her (or to be more precise, mortally injured her). Many was the time I saw a goat limping after escaping from his nasty little leg-hooking trick; that he never managed to break a leg may be something of a miracle. If ever a goat should have been separated from his horns at birth, Spike was that goat; I think all of our lives would have been less stressful if he had been.

A lot of goat fanciers in this country dehorn (disbud) babies as a matter of course, believing that a few seconds of unpleasantness at that age may head off a lot of headache and heartache down the road. The goats won't be using the horns to defend themselves from predators (especially in the mini breeds, they're pretty much useless for that, anyway), the only thing they will be using them against is each other, and possibly people. In fact, the usual advice is to have all horned goats, or all hornless in a herd; those with horns often ruthlessly bully any that don't have horns. Even in an all-horned herd, there is a pecking order, typically, the bigger the weapons, the higher the rank. I would even speculate that this may be the logic behind the preference for a shapely set of horns in @River Buffaloes country; good horns being seen as an indicator of a strong, healthy animal, one that will likely do well for its new owner. An animal that had misshapen or broken horns would be at a severe disadvantage when introduced into an established herd, if everyone else had a good set and knew how to use them. If it survived, it would probably be at the lowest end of the dominance ladder, and be a "poor doer" because of limited access to food, water, shelter.

 

[rachels.haven]

Here most goats are disbudded for safety. If they are not, cut the going price for a goat in half and you'd be lucky to get that. ExtraVet and ER visits are easily prevented if horns are removed from the goats as babies.

 

[Ridgetop]

but why remove his horns though? If we remove the horns of our goats, no one will give us a good price for them?

Bunnylady has it correctly!

Horns in a small ranch situation are a nuisance and dangerous to the goat and others. Even in the dwarf breeds, horn tips are right at eye level for small children who often play with these pets. In the case of showing goats, the American Dairy Goat Association bans the exhibition of horned animals in dairy classes. In 4-H classes the fair rules (usually state rules governing al fairs in the state) also bar any horned goats to be shown by children One breed where horns are allowed is in the Boer goat shows. In the Boer ring horns may give you a plus over disbudded animals, although no extra points are allowed for horns and many people disbud their Boers for safety purposes.

We disbudded all our goats. It is done just when you can feel the horn buds emerging You have to burn them until the white skull shows or you will get scurs, You also have to burn in a wide enough pattern around the horn bud base. I never got scurs on our goats. An old got breeder showed ne how to do it 30 years ago and sold me his iron. When i sent it in for repairs the company offered me a new one in return because they wanted the old one for their museum! LOL Apparently the government (your friend and mine - LOL) no longer allows them to produce irons heating to the temperature mine does. That may be why scurs are more common using modern irons. Our son began disbudding for all the 4-H kids at age 13. He made his pocket money that way. He never had scurs show up either. Our goat kids were some of the earliest born and he would practice on ours. By the time other kids brought their goats to him, he had usually done 30 or 40 already. Since our kids were bottle fed, we would immediately give a bottle afterwards. Boers immediately would nurse. They did not feel it after the first touch of the iron.

We stopped disbudding and castrating when we were selling to the ethnic market since they prefer their lambs and kids entire and with horns. We no longer dock tails with our market lambs since the ethnic market pays higher for tailed lambs Since for River Buffaloes the market requires horns, you would have no need to disbud or dehorn. Here it is a safety requirement, especially for pets in confined spaces.

I was horned in the leg requiring stanching of blood and medical attention when feeding for a friend with friendly Pygmies. A goat will toss its head and gore you without actually meaning to hurt you. Horned goats in fenced enclosures get tangled in fences, feeders, etc, and can strangle, or be killed by predators when helpless. Horned goats can injure other livestock (one friend was warned to disbud a young kid but did not want to "hurt it" and ended up with a gored pony and massive medical bills, The goat went to the auction.

That is why most people prefer to disbud the kids.