disbudding question

[marlowmanor]

How late can you disbud a goat kid? We are getting a buckling in Mid-September. He was born 8/4/11, is it too late to have him disbudded? We haven't been to visit him in about a week so I am not sure if he has any horns poking through yet or not, but I did send a message to my dad (who we are getting him from) asking him about it. There is a guy who disbuds (he breeds NDs) and I sent him a message asking him about whether he would be willing to disbud our baby for us, but waiting on his reply. Also curious about how much the equipment costs to do disbudding (for mini goats, since that is all I figure we will ever have). Would be interested in learning how to do it and perhaps getting the equipment so that we could do it ourselves. Yes, I have seen the video that one member (GoatMasta?) has on his page. The guy that does disbudding that I contacted is an hr away so being able to learn to do it ourselves would come in handy.

 

[crazyland]

My girls were done at 9 days old. There were no horns just buds/bumps.
I had a neighbor do ours and she charges $25 a kid. She said her irons cost $300 each. She has several sets as she has nubians and alpine.
There are some threads about disbudding older kids and vets doing it. Not all of them end well.

 

[lilhill]

We disbud buck kids anywhere from 3 to 7 days old, depending on when I can feel their horn buds. I would suggest you have someone show you how to do it first. You can get a disbudding iron at Jeffers Livestock online. Plan to spend about $50 to $80 for a good one. We use the Rhinehart X30 with the regular tip (Not the Pygmy tip).

 

[savingdogs]

We were going to do our kids ourselves, but while we were looking to purchase a disbudding iron, we found a person who disbuds very reasonably near us. After watching her do an excellent job on our three, I am very glad we at least observed her technique. Frankly, we plan to go back to her next year as the results were perfect and I doubt we would do as well. Our three were all a little less than two weeks old (born different times).

 

[Goatmasta]

There is an article on my blog about disbudding.. There is a tools list as well.

 

[marlowmanor]

There is an article on my blog about disbudding.. There is a tools list as well.

I had looked at the disbuding information on your list once before. Is the disbudding box something you make or buy?

We have a guy who will do the disbudding for us, even though our buckling is starting to get a little bit of horns (they haven't broke through the fur yet, but you can feel them) and he is not charging us anything. He said if we wanted to donate a little bit to the farm that would be fine but that he wouldn't charge vet costs. Just waiting on DH to make the definate decision about when we will do it (is has to be this week). I figure it will have to be in the next 2 days that my DH has off work too. Hopefully he'll make a decision and get it done. It requires us driving an hr to the guy and an hr back, and of course we have to borrow the buckling to get it done too since he is still in his momma's care at my fathers house. My dad knows about the plans though and has ok-ed us "kidnappping"(LOL) our little buckling for a couple hours to get it done. Then the next thing to do is think about getting the equipment and learning to do it ourselves. Although we will have a small herd, someone with disbudding experience is always useful for people. There may be people who would like their goats disbudded and need someone to do it for them. If I can get good at it I can always make a little extra money doing it for people who don't know how or who don't want to pay vet prices for it.

 

[Pearce Pastures]

We bought our Rhinehart x30 with pygmy tip from Valley Vet for under $70 and it works beautifully. I also bought a holding box (from Caprine Supply I think) but honestly could have made it myself and it would have been better put together and I could have saved myself the cash. Make sure you get your goaties a tetanus toxoid shot before doing it That is great that you have someone to do this for you!!

 

[manybirds]

How late can you disbud a goat kid? We are getting a buckling in Mid-September. He was born 8/4/11, is it too late to have him disbudded? We haven't been to visit him in about a week so I am not sure if he has any horns poking through yet or not, but I did send a message to my dad (who we are getting him from) asking him about it. There is a guy who disbuds (he breeds NDs) and I sent him a message asking him about whether he would be willing to disbud our baby for us, but waiting on his reply. Also curious about how much the equipment costs to do disbudding (for mini goats, since that is all I figure we will ever have). Would be interested in learning how to do it and perhaps getting the equipment so that we could do it ourselves. Yes, I have seen the video that one member (GoatMasta?) has on his page. The guy that does disbudding that I contacted is an hr away so being able to learn to do it ourselves would come in handy.

we just got a 3 week old buckling done. i don't recomend doing it over 2 weeks but sometimes u got to do what u got to do. just keep the iron on a little longer

 

[Goatmasta]

There is an article on my blog about disbudding.. There is a tools list as well.

I had looked at the disbuding information on your list once before. Is the disbudding box something you make or buy?

I built mine, since we have a couple token Nubians as well as Nigerians, I made mine big enough to handle a standard size baby then for the NDs I stuff a blanket in it. It works just fine. When I first started my wife held them on the ground, no fun. Get a box or make a box it is so much easier.