Removing goat horn buds~ not for the weak at heart ~ graphic

[Gemoriah]

We have 2 kid goats. They are pets more than anything. We have been bottle feeding them since we got them and my girls love their goats as if they were a dog. We made the decision to have their horns removed. We did not want an accident happening, whether to us or once of our other animals. You can look pictures up on the net and I'll tell ya, it is more graphic than that. In the long run we all will be happy but right now its enough to make one cry.

To start, I have to say the ladies who are the vets took very good care of my goats. Its a hard job.

I brought in 1 goat at a time. They plugged in the iron. It is a circle shaped iron that gets extremely hot. One of the techs sat on the floor and held the goat legs up. A second tech held the goats ears back so they did not get burnt. The vet then applied the iron to the area around horn nubs that were sticking up. You smell burning hair and the goat is screaming. If my wife and girls were there, they would have cried their eyes out. Heck, I almost did. Repeat for goat #2.

The goats have 2 burnt rings around the horn nubs. It smells of burnt goat hair.

A few hours later, they are acting almost as if nothing happened.

 

[animallover505]

yeah. my friend does it alone with every baby goat she has, she says it's really tough.

 

[Stacykins]

Yep, disbudding is an awful task. But dairy goats used for show can't have horns, so the horns must go.

I give the kids a dose of banamine prior to disbudding. It is like ibuprofen for goats, and helps them bounce back from the ordeal quickly.

 

[farmchick897]

How much banamine do you use for what size goat? What day do you disbud? I have to do my kids for the first time, I ordered a Rhinehart X50 from Hoeggers.
Any tips would be appreciated. I have helped before and it resulted in horn regrowth that had to be sawed off by vet and reburned. So would like to do it right the first time.

 

[Stacykins]

How much banamine do you use for what size goat? What day do you disbud? I have to do my kids for the first time, I ordered a Rhinehart X50 from Hoeggers.
Any tips would be appreciated. I have helped before and it resulted in horn regrowth that had to be sawed off by vet and reburned. So would like to do it right the first time.

The goat dosage of banamine is 1 ml (cc) per 100lbs. Goat babies only need a tiny dose. With my Nigerian Dwarf kids, I gave them 0.1 ml, which was rounded up a bit, and they were fine.

The day depends on the goat. I had to do mine on different days. The buckling was born with horn buds, so I got him when he was three days old (I didn't want to stress him out the day or day after being born. His sister, didn't need done until two weeks later, when she finally started getting her buds. No scurs on either of them (I sold the lad not too long ago, but he was scur free then).