Time to Remove the Horns from the Triplets

Our little Nubian triplets are 4 weeks old and their little horn buds are coming in.  It is high time to do something about it.  Some call it de-horning and some call it disbudding, but the result is the same – you remove the horns of the animal.  The decision to dehorn or not to dehorn is one that many people struggle with.  There are pros and cons to keeping goats with horns. 

I read with interest that goats cannot sweat.  Horns allow them to regulate their body temperature.  Interesting.  Horns also allow goats to protect themselves against predators.  Horns allow the goats to scratch those “hard to reach places.”  Horns give the goats ‘handles’ that humans can hold while working on them.

The cons are that goat horns can be quite dangerous.  Dangerous for other goats.  Dangerous for people/kids.  The horns can grow quite sharp and put out an eye if you aren’t careful.  Then, goats have a habit of squirming and fitting their necks through the fence to eat the green grass on the other side.   If the goat has horns, they could be trapped until you untangle them from the fence and/or they can destroy the fence or strangle themselves.

We like to remove the horns from our goats.  It is not something I look forward to doing.  For Annie, I tried a process using an elastic band you use to castrate a young bull.  The process was successful in removing her horns but scurs (small misshapen horns) grew back.  We wanted to try an electric dehorner, but the one we borrowed to dehorn our bull, Chuck was too big.  Fortunately for us, a friend of ours had all the equipment and offered to help us dehorn Buckwheat, Darla, and Jane.

In addition to bringing the electric dehorning element, he brought a cool box shown below.  You simply put the kid into the box.

And then close the lid.  Just the goat’s head sticks out of the box and you can even tuck their ears inside and out of the way. 

The box has a divider in the bottom so that the kid can’t sit down, but remains upright and erect while the procedure is underway.  One person handles the dehorning and one holds the animal so that it is immobile.

The dehorner is plugged in for 30 minutes to allow it to heat up.

Then it is applied over the little horn buds.  This is the unpleasant part.  Smoke fills the room along with the smell of burning hair.  The goat cries and it is kind of a heart-wrenching thing.  It is essentially like branding an animal with a hot iron.

The heating iron is pressed down until a copper colored ring encircles the little horn buds.  The little horn buds’ tips can be flicked off and then the iron is pressed on the top of the horn buds.  This kills the root of the horns and stops their growth.

We apply some Blue Wound Coat spray to the area to ward off infection, but there is no blood in this process.

Here are all of the little tips of the triplet’s horns that came off.

While they screamed bloody murder during the procedure, they quickly recover and are running around playfully in just a few minutes like nothing happened.  The ‘out-patient’ procedure being finished, we decided to give them a full checkup and weigh them, so I went and got the scale and we placed a big blue molasses tub on top and zeroed it out and then placed each kid into the tub to weigh them.

And here is where we figured out what is going on with the three kids.

• Jane weighs 16 and 3/4 pounds
• Darla weighs 11 and 1/2 pounds
• Buckwheat weighs 14 pounds

The weights of the kids tells the story.  Jane is getting Annie’s left teat and sucking it dry, while Buckwheat and Darla share/fight over the other one.  As a result, Jane grows at a faster pace than her siblings, but Tricia is milking Annie and feeding Darla and Buckwheat with baby bottles filled with Annie’s milk supplemented with some of our cows’ milk.  They’ll all be okay, especially since we’ll be weaning in a couple of months.

So dehorning is done.  Special thanks to our friend and his family in North Louisiana for their expertise and equipment.

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.

The Mailman Delivered

Subtitled: Removing Annie's Horns

I received a couple of packages in the mail the other day that I had been anticipating and was excited to get them and open them up.

The packages

It probably says a lot about a man who is excited to open up a package containing a vintage Ideal Band Castrator along with 100 castrating bands.  Our little Nubian goat, Annie, has horns and they have grown. I've been reading lots on the Internet on the topic of goat horns.  One thing that seems to be a semi-broad consensus is that you don't want a goat with horns.

Cutting off horns reminded me of a Bible verse:

Psalm 75:10

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

10 And all the horns of the wicked He will cut off,
But the horns of the righteous will be lifted up.

This verse speaks of horns as an emblem of power and communicates the justice of God in that he'll remove the power of the wicked and will extend the power of the righteous.  I don't think this verse was talking about Annie.  She's neither wicked, nor righteous - maybe a little mischievous, though.

Equipment Received

Goats with horns injure each other and themselves, can injure you by goring you or poking out an eye, and are of detriment to fencing, resulting in repeated repairs. When Annie was a bit younger, I rescued her as she had poked her head through the perimeter fence to eat some grass and consequently got her horns stuck. After reading lots on the topic, I gathered the thing to purchase was a castrator and bands.  This method works better, I have read, than dehorning paste, burning, or sawing them off. I purchased a really old castrator (used) for cheaper than I could find anywhere online new.  It is no doubt better made and more durable than the cheap stuff made today.

It was neat in that it came in the original, stained box with the original price marked with a permanent marker. I paid a couple bucks more than the original price. Although it is for castrating lambs and cattle, and also for docking lambs and goats, if you read the third bolded line below, you'll see that it says it is also used for Dehorning Cattle and Goats.  We're in business.

Original Packaging

So off to the barn we went with castrator, castrating bands, and duct tape in hand. You'll see the two castrating bands in the palm of my had next to my wedding band. The castrating bands are only slightly less constricting and confining than the wedding band.  I'm only joking!!  Benjamin, I think it was, remarked that they look like green Cheerios.

The tie that binds

We distracted Annie by putting her in Nellie's milking stanchion and putting a little feed in the trough.  Annie likes the dairy pellets and got busy, oblivious to our schemes.

Munch, munch, munch

I dropped the bands in a cup of water and allowed them to soften up for a few minutes.  Then a rolled the band on the four prongs of the castrator and opened them by squeezing on the handle.  This process gave me a very strange, if not queasy, feeling.  I don't need to explain why.  I'm going to be very careful with this instrument!

Expand the Band

Tricia held Annie's head firmly as I slipped the castrator and band around one of her horns and all the way to the base of the horn.  I released the castrator and the band tightened on the horn and then I removed the castrator.

First one is done

I then rolled the band as far down as I could get it and repeated the process with the other horn.

Rolling the band down to the base

Here is a picture of both horns banded.  The bands will cause the horns to fall off in about 3 weeks, according to all I have read.  

Banded Goat Horns

We watched her for a bit.  The different literature I read stated that she'll be uncomfortable for about 10 minutes.  That is exactly what we experienced.  She cried for a very brief period, but was fine after that.  In order to keep her from rubbing against something and rolling the bands off, I used duct tape to tape the bands in place.

Annie with horns

I'll continue to monitor her progress each day to ensure everything is okay, but if all goes well, we'll have a horn-less Annie in 3 weeks and we'll show the 'after' photo. Once horn-less, she'll be hard to tell apart from her momma, Nellie.