An Update on Clarabull (Clarabelle's bull calf)

Three bulls on the pasture now.  Astro, and then Rosie's little bull and finally Clarabull, Clarabelle's little bull.  Clarabull likes running in the pasture, kicking up his heels and chasing the chickens.  We enjoy watching him from the backyard while he puts on a show for us.  He started out as a little weak fellow, but now he is strong and healthy.

Even though we rarely keep bulls on our pasture for longer than a year and a half, we don't want horns on them.  Horns can be dangerous.  They can gore other animals and can gore you!  We wait until about 7-14 days after the calves have been born and then de-horn them.  It was time to do this for Clarabelle's little bull.  Although we won't go through all the steps, by clicking on this link: DEHORNING CLARABELLE, you can see step by step how we dehorned Clarabelle.

Clarabull was not too happy about the procedure.  Here he is with his duct tape protective covering.  This keeps the de-horning paste from getting in his eyes or on other animals.

While it may look silly, it serves it's purpose.  Dr. Naylor's De-horning paste is a caustic paste.  At night, we trim the hair down to where we can see the horn bud, we apply a nickel-sized amount of De-horning paste over the horn bud and the put a ring of petroleum jelly around the de-horning paste to contain it.

The duct-tape protective cap will stay on until the morning.  In the morning, we take it off, wash off the area around his horns and hopefully, the horn buds will not grow.  In a month or two, we will be able to tell if the procedure was successful.