Dehorning

[Horsefly]

I was wondering why goat people burn off horn buds on babies but cow people cut them off after they have grown some. My neighbor is going to dehorn 2 calves he has next weekend and said he can cut the horns off our two kids who grew horns even though they were burned. Is there a reason you don't do this on goats?
With our new kid I think I am going to try caustic on his horn buds. He is 3 days old, can I do it now or wait till he is a week old?

 

[DonnaBelle]

Goat horns have blood vessels, you cannot just cut them off. Cow horns are different. They don't have blood vessels so can be cut.

Disbudding is done on a baby goat when they are about a week old. It is done with a disbudding iron and there is a precise method in which it's done. Which may be why you are now having "scurs". Which is horn that grows out after disbudding.

I don't know much about caustic, except most people frown on it. If you can wait a couple of days until someone with more experience with disbudding can post, it would be worth your while.
We have people on this post, Freemotion and Roll Farms are both experienced goat people.

Good luck,

DonnaBelle

 

[Chirpy]

As stated cows and goats are different. People who do not want horns on their goats disbud when the kid is anywhere from a couple days to possibly 2 to 3 weeks old; but that would be rare. Some kids buds grow very quickly and they have to be done in two or three days of birth; some kids (like my little girl that we disbudded this morning) have buds that grow much slower and thus you can wait 2 weeks. It's MUCH better to do it sooner (less likely to have scurs) and it can get to be too late if the buds/horns get too large which means it won't be able to be done at all. My little girl that we did this morning is almost three weeks old.... her horns hadn't grown enough to be seen through her hair yet. I would have actually preferred (and had planned) to do her a week and a half ago but there were complications (people things - not goat things). Last year I needed to disbud before my kids were a week old as they were growing so fast. That would be the norm.

If the disbudding is done incorrectly (and even sometimes when it's done correctly) you can have a goat end up with scurs. Scurs can be a huge problem... I've seen them grow and twist around literally back into the skull of the goat.

De-horning an older/adult goat is a surgical process that should be done by a knowledgeable vet. It is not easy, far more painful for the goat and can be very traumatic on the goat (and the people). You are far more likely to have infection and other potential problems when surgery is used to remove horns.

Some people have had great success by banding horns in older goats. I've never tried it but most goat people around here don't suggest it. Personally, I think I'd try that before going the surgery route though. I've seen that and it was awful each time.

I absolutely wouldn't use caustic on my goats. It works very slowly and I feel that it is cruel to the goat.

Here's FiasCo Farms site on disbudding - It might help you with your decision: http://fiascofarm.com/goats/disbudding.htm

 

[haviris]

Look back a few posts, there was a thread about using the past on the horns. Hopefully it will answer your questions about that.

On the other, I don't know, calves can also be disbudded w/ an iron, I don't know what's most common. In the past I've generally just left the horns (only one cow and bull calves), but have a heifer this year I want done, I 'wish' I'd used the paste on her, but waited to long (for that or the iron), so now I'm going to talk to my vet to figure out what the best method will be.