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…

Cutting off Horns

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

Back in November we posted HERE how we used dehorning paste to remove little Amy's horns.  It is a tricky process.  If you use too much of the paste, you run the risk of the acid running and possibly getting in their eyes, blinding them.  If you are on the cautious side and don't use enough, the horn bud isn't killed and it will grow back. Well, 8 months later one of Amy's horns started growing back.  Amy is not wicked (ha ha!), but we made an appointment with the veterinarian to get the horn cut off.

The veterinarian in town that we normally use didn't do this procedure, so we had to load up Amy in the trailer and bring her to Lake Charles for a short procedure to remove the horn.  After dropping off Amy at the vet for her day surgery, I went on to work, but Tricia watched the procedure.  The vet deadened the area on her head and sliced two long incisions, opening up her head. Then he took a large scoop-like device and scooped out the growing horn and roots. Just to be safe, he did the same on the other side as well. Poor Amy had copious amounts of blood streaming down her head. Tricia said it was hard to watch.  She wasn't in pain, though. Amy was loaded back in the trailer and Dad followed Tricia home.  Amy was unloaded and put back in the pasture.

Last night, however, the deer flies were giving her a hard time and she was using her back legs to scratch her head.  I didn't want her to open up the incision, so we let her sleep in the stall in the barn so she'd be away from the flies out in the pasture. 

Amy in the barn - a temporary recovery room after her procedure

The doctor had stitched her up and sprayed some silver stuff (AluSpray, I think) to protect the wound from bacterial infection.  It looked a lot like silver spray paint. After a rough day, she appears to be doing great now. You can see how the veterinarian shaved part of her head and made large incisions and then sprayed the silver stuff on her.

Ouch!

It had mostly stopped bleeding, but then she irritated it scratching against something and it started bleeding a little bit again.

The doctor did a good job closing up the incision and stitching it up.  We're to remove the stitches after a week.  If we lived closer, we'd take her back in, but we'll do it ourselves.  Once the wound heals up, you won't be able to notice.

We gave Amy some alfalfa pellets for a little treat and left her in the stall overnight. This morning when we went out to milk Daisy and Rosie she was doing just fine.

We put her back out into her paddock and she started eating grass.  It was probably a painful ordeal for her that could have been avoided (along with the $113 vet bill) had we been successful in dehorning her properly in the first place, but this is one of those situations that you use as a learning experience.  We'll either apply a bit more dehorning paste next time the cows calve OR we'll invest in a de-horning iron.  This is an electric appliance that heats up red-hot and is then held against the calf's horn bud to destroy the horn and prevent future growth.