Cut off the Horns of the Wicked

Psalm 75:10 (KJV) All the horns of the wicked also will I cut off; but the horns of the righteous shall be exalted.

A commentary tells me that in this Bible verse, horns are literal, not figurative, and what it means is that the horns are defined as the “power, the might, the glory, the haughtiness” of the wicked and will be brought down, while the power of the righteous will be lifted up.

We’ve found that there are times on our little homestead where literal horns must be cut off.  Case in point is Chuck, our Jersey bull.

Young Chuck sitting on the ground (Ground Chuck?)

As with all of our animals, within the first couple weeks of their lives, we use dehorning paste to kill the little horn buds, so that their horns won’t ever develop.  Horns are dangerous to people, to other animals in the barnyard, and horns also wreak havoc on fences.  There are times in which for one reason or another, things don’t go as planned.  We put the same de-horning paste on Luna and her horns were killed.  For Chuck, however, one didn’t grow, but the other started to grow.  This presents a problem.

It’s too big now to use de-horning paste.  We’d have to load him into a trailer and bring him to the veterinarian to undergo surgery to remove it.  That is costly and time-consuming.  There is another option…

There is a device called an electric dehorner.  It essentially is a circular heating iron that heats up, and you apply it to the entire area encircling the horn bud.  It will kill the horn bud.  A friend of ours owns an electric dehorner and agreed to let us borrow it.  Actually, he was in the area and came by and took care of the procedure for us.

I’m not going to show pictures of the process.  We tied him up tight where he couldn’t thrash around.  Then we put the nose pliers in his nose to make him compliant.  Finally the cherry red heating element was used (similar to a brand).  The barn filled with smoke when the heating iron was applied, but Chuck was only uncomfortable for a minute.  He was running around acting normal in no time, although I’m sure his head was sore.

In checking in on him a few days later, you can see the round ring that the heating element made around his horn bud.  You can also see where the little horn is about to fall off.  With this method of horn removal, there’s no bleeding.  The ‘roots’ of the horn are dead and will not grow, ensuring the safety of us, other animals and our fences.

Ouch!

And that brings a gentle reminder to me that we need to decide what to do about the triplet’s horns.  Do we want to remove them?  If so, by what method?  We tried using a castrator band on Annie’s horns.  While it worked, scurs (partial horns) grew back and we’ll likely look to another method.  The electric de-horner for a calf looks to be way too large to use on a baby goat.  They make electric dehorners for goats.  Maybe we’ll let Chuck weigh in with his opinion?

"Don't Get me Started..."

Well, maybe not…