A Note on Banding Horns, Goat Owners Please Read

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I would use bluekote.

 

[cassie]

You could put some antibiotic powder or Bluekote on it. If the sinus is open, you may want to cover it with some sort of bandage. When we dehorned we put on a liberal amount of terramycin powder and covered it with a sanitary napkin secured with duct tape. That was with two horns though. Might be a little more difficult to apply a bandage over one horn. If the sinus is not open, just apply blukote and leave off the bandage. The purpose of the bandage is just to keep debris from falling in the sinus.

 

[Yvonne37894]

Thank you for the help. He is doing much better. Horn broke off but sinus was not exposed. It has formed a seal and is healing nicely.

 

[waddles99]

Such a shame...that buck has such beautiful horns. I personally think it is cruel to try and take off the horns when they are full grown. If you want them off, disbud them at a proper age or don't buy a goat with horns.

 

[LomanAtJeffers]

Dehorning little ones doesn't have to be painful. Here's a product that is for calves, sheep or goats under 2months old.

http://www.jefferslivestock.com/ssc...6MACDWTFAUU156UAC&pf_id=16159&cmkw=horn paste

Jeffers revamped their website a few years ago. Here's a current link to that particular product:

http://www.jefferspet.com/products/dehorning-paste-4oz

 

[Yvonne37894]

We tried using the paste! My Opinion, Do Not Use on goat kids!!!!! Very painful, 20 minutes of screaming kid, the few that we did this on, grew horns that were deformed. Also, if they rub this caustic stuff in their eyes, they could be blind from it. Not worth the savings. Dehorning at the right age or banding at 1 year is better for the goat. IMO

The Tri-Band Castrating tool is the easiest to us. The bands have antibiotics on them. We banded the horns on 1 year old goats, they came off with in 4 weeks, no complications.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I agree, we bought the paste once, read the directions and promptly threw it out, nasty stuff, especially if you have never used it before. I have have good luck with bands, and not such good luck, they key is a proper application.

 

[Cowgirl71]

Goat kid horns develop much faster than calf horns do. So when the bottle says it will dehorn calves up to two months old, that cannot be interpreted straight across to another species. What I remember reading I *believe* is that it will treat buck kids up to 3 days old and doe kids up to 5 days old. But please research that before treating your babies. We have a herd of goats, but we never dehorn them. The "handles" prove invaluable for deworming, handling, etc.

I have used the Dr. Naylor dehorning paste on two Jersey calves. A 2 week old bull calf and an 8 week old heifer calf. It worked excellent on the 2 week old calf. He seemed to be in no pain, and was more concerned with getting back to momma than anything else. He half-heartedly tried to rub the paste off only a handful of times during the several hours I baby sat him. He grew up with a beautiful smooth poll, like he'd been born polled. Very happy with the experience and the results.

However, I would not suggest using it on an 8 week old calf. It did technically work, she's now 2 years old and is polled. But it was not a pleasant experience, I won't do it again. The actual treatment was painful for her, we had to put her in a head catch for several hours to keep her from scraping the paste off. After the treatment, she had two raw spots on her poll for several weeks, where you could see that the paste had eaten a ring around and under the horn. I was concerned about flies/maggots, and tried to keep a close eye on her poll. 31 days after the treatment the horns finally both fell off, and the wounds eventually healed over, and the hair eventually grew back as well.

My stance on dehorning is that I do prefer to leave the horns on whenever possible. It's natural, that's the way they were born. However a 1000 pound horned milk cow needs to have a good temperament, and you can't always be sure what kind of a temperament a calf will have as a cow. I have switched back to using an Angus bull on my Jersey cows. The calves are born black and polled and are an excellent dual-purpose hybrid.

For anyone wondering what the paste feels like..... In the process of dehorning the heifer calf I accidentally got some paste in the crevice alongside one of my fingernails. I didn't notice it until about 15 minutes later, when it felt like a mild bug stinging. I swished my hand and it didn't go away. I looked, and it was a small bit of orange dehorning paste. It had eaten away some of the skin and flesh and an area under the nail the size of 2-3 pin heads. I washed it off and fortunately it healed just fine. All that to say that I'm convinced that it does have some pain killer additive to it, because I barely felt it, it was very tolerable.

 

[cassie]

Just a couple comments. If you use bands make sure the goat is immunized for tetanus. I have never used the dehorning paste on kids but I have a friend that did. First of all, the kids she used it on were very young. She put vaseline around the horn bud where she did not want the paste. That way if it ran a little it wouldn't hurt anything. After she applied the paste she held the kid in her arms while she watched a TV program. At the end of the half hour program she washed off the paste as per the directions and that was that. Worked for her.

 

[derb]

I had great concerns about posting my dehorning photos of Becky...the only reason being that I DO NOT want to make horn banding appear to be a simple procedure.

You will find text and photos regarding horn banding on the web. They make it sound so simple, so carefree.

It is not that straightforward. Especially given that most of us are dealing with pet goats - not production goats off in a field who are only seen a couple times a month.

For those of you contemplating it, please call around to find someone who has experience with banding before you even consider attempting it. There is blood, there is pain you'll want to manage with Rx drugs. There can be serious complications.

DO NOT COUNT ON IT GOING AS EASILY AS THE WEBSITES YOU FIND SHOW IT BEING.

As I've mentioned in my original post regarding Becky - so far I do feel this method is far better than surgical dehorning (and I don't feel horn sawing should even be contemplated). Still, it is not without risk - and even when it goes right it can be messy and hard to deal with.

Stepping off my soapbox...

Where is original post? I cannot find. Thanks for sharing your experience.