Dehorning paste, anyone used it and does it work?

[Pumpkinpup]

I have seen dehorning paste and am curious if it works or if it is major waste of time. I want to dehorn my jersey heifer but really don't just jump for joy at the prospect of it. I worry that the process will ruin her trust in me and destroy the bond I have worked so hard to build. Advice please.....


edited for spelling error

 

[jhm47]

I've used it years ago. Quit when some of it ran down into the eye of one of my calves. It does work, and seems to be mostly painless, unless it gets into an eye. I now prefer an electric dehorner. It hurts them for a few minutes, but there is no blood, and they recover quickly.

Dehorning is always a very bad, but necessary process. Yes, it causes pain to the animal, but it also makes them much safer for their herdmates and owners. Horns can also cause injuries to the animal itself. I have also seen horns that grow into the head or face of cows. NOT a pretty sight, and if you have to remove them when the animal is mature, you will have a much bigger problem. I've also seen cattle that caught their horns in machinery, fences, trees, etc. Sometimes they will break the horn off, and lose a lot of blood. Other times, they will remain caught till they die of thirst.

As to destroying "trust,"or "bond", the calf will forget very quickly. I'll bet she will be back to normal within a couple of hours.

Grit your teeth, have your heifer dehorned. You and your family will be safer, and so will your heifer. And-----Good luck!

 

[Pumpkinpup]

I do dehorn my goats so I am quite familiar with the process and most certainly understand the importance based on the safety factor
I have never done a calf and wanted to know all the pros and cons to different methods before tackling the job. I must confess, this is one I am not very comfortable doing. I just want to do the best for her.
Thank you very much for your input and the insight on the paste. It is much appreciated!

 

[goodhors]

We have tried paste on two calves, had no luck with it. Both were dairy breed calves. One was
rather sensitive, he got rubbing his face on the walls, even tied. I was afraid of eye damage
as jhm47 said, so we took it off. He still got weepy sores on his head and skin off where he rubbed
the paste off the horn area. Head was black skin and haired. This calf also had wormer reaction
on the white areas on his back. Got very red, sore to the touch, so I say he was pretty sensitive
to things on his skin.

2nd calf was Holstein, he was done with the dehorning stuff twice, they still grew in. He had
no reaction to paste, never tried to rub his head. Paste just didn't work to prevent the horns,
though they did come in a bit later. Being a 4-H calf with horn rules, we just kept rasping horn
growth off both of the calves until they were sold.

Our Vet charges $100 to get his dehorner out, so we wanted to avoid the cost. I have never
used a dehorner, have no one to learn from. The rasping of horns kept them really short,
about invisible on the calves until sold. They passed for Fair. Calves didn't seem to mind
being rasped, just stood there. We started rasping as quick as there was a bump sticking out.
We did get a drop of blood now and again, stopped rasping, but no steady flow to worry about.

You can have the rest of my jar! Wasted money for us, plus burned the one calf's head, with
STILL not killing the horns. He took a while to get sores gone and hair back in. That is NASTY stuff.

 

[Pumpkinpup]

We have tried paste on two calves, had not luck with it. Both were dairy breed calves. One was
rather sensitive, he got rubbing his face on the walls, even tied. I was afraid of eye damage
as jhm47 said, so we took it off. This calf also had wormer reaction on his white areas on his
back. Got very red, sore to the touch, so I say he was pretty sensitive to things on his skin.

2nd calf was Holstein, he was done with the dehorning stuff twice, they still grew in. He had
no reaction, never tried to rub his head. Just didn't work to prevent the horns, though they
did come in a bit later. Being a 4-H calf with horn rules, we just kept rasping them down until
he was sold.

Our Vet charges $100 to get his dehorner out, so we wanted to avoid the cost. I have never
used a dehorner, have no one to learn from. The rasping of horns kept them really short,
about invisible on the calves, until sold. They passed for Fair. Calves didn't seem to mind
being rasped, just stood there. We started rasping as quick as there was a bump sticking out.
We did get a drop of blood now and again, stopped rasping, but no steady flow to worry about.

You can have the rest of my jar! Wasted money for us, plus burned the one calf's head, with
STILL not killing the horns. That is NASTY stuff.

Hmmmm, sounds like I will be breaking out the dehorning iron. I truly did not want it to come to that. Darn!

 

[5Jerseygirls]

Here is my experience with burning and paste.

2 years ago I had the vet de-horn a 2 week old bull. His nubs were little and a 6 month old heifer with horns 2" long. He numbed them up but that in itself was very painful and it seemed like it took forever with so many needle pokes. He had to first cut off the heifers horns and then burn and just burn the bull. The heifer felt bad for a couple of days and the bull laid out in the pasture off and on for 2 weeks moaning he was clearly in pain so I gave him aspirin. I don't know why it hurt him so badly because he just had the burn. At the time it looked like a great job. The heifer's horns grew back and are now about 4 inches long but they are blunt and growing down. She is very gentle so I will leave them alone. The bull has 1" nubs that he keeps rounded off by rubbing them on things so they look good.

This year I tried the paste on a 3 day old heifer and I am extremely happy. I think the secret is to do this on calves less than a week old. It was very hard on her and ME for the 50 minutes the paste was on, but she was over it by that night.... Bouncing around like nothing happened. I gave her one aspirin when I was finished because I could see she was hurting.
One thing I did learn from my first time is that when you start putting the paste on you lose sight of the center of the nub. I lucked out and got it all. She is 4 months old now and nothing growing so far.

You mentioned you have used paste but I will go into detail so it may help others.

This is what I will do next time on a calf less than 1 week old. (The template and tape is the only thing different than what I did the first time)
1: Trim the hair around the bud and a little beyond so the template can stick to the skin and not the fur. (Tie the calf to a post just long enough they can lay down)

2: Cut off the end of a syringe that is the size of a nickle in diameter so that the plunger is showing.

3: Make a template out of duct tape with nickle size holes in it that will center around the bud. Rub the tape to the skin to keep the paste from getting under it.

4: Put some paste in the end of the syringe to make application very easy. Nickle size nickle thick seems to best describe the amount to use.

5: Apply the the paste and put some duct tape over the paste trying not to push it down on the paste to keep it from smearing. The calf will try to scratch it with it's foot. Stay with the calf the entire 50 minutes to make sure the calf is safe and the paste is contained.

6: Clean off the paste. Make sure to get it all.


My friend has had good luck with using the knock off version of the Calistrate bander. It is the one that takes big bands, not the little green bands, to de-horn large horns on adult cows. Just make sure you put the band as close to the head as possible and duct tape the band. It seems to be bloodless and pain free and takes about a month for the horns to fall off.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

It is way easier on the animals to be disbudded properly at a young age than have their horns removed when they're older. I've had a goat die after being surgically dehorned by a vet. I've also had to help dehorn heifers (almost fully grown, about 50 of them) that had never been disbudded. Talk about a blood bath. We used the "scoop" type dehorners, which would take off the horn, then we had to use forceps to pull out the blood vessels, then tie off the horn bases with twine to hopefully stop the bleeding. We left there very bloody, and the heifers were also very bloody.

After seeing how painful it is on the animals to have horns removed rather than horn buds burned, I will ALWAYS pick disbudding. It's over in a few minutes. Why make the animal suffer? 50 minutes for the paste? Ouch. I'd rather put them through a few minutes of disbudding because they're always back on track in just a few minutes.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

And I'm sorry, but I don't see how banding horns is pain free!