Disbudding Zeus

There are a lot of things that people in the city don't want to know about farm life.  I mean, I watched Food, Inc. and was just as appalled as everyone at the conditions that the animals were forced to live in.  That's not what I'm talking about.  Our animals live as happily as we can accomodate.  But reality dictates that some things that might not be necessary in the wild, are done on the farm.  Disbudding is one of those things.

Many goat owners do not disbud (or de-horn) their goats.  Many do.  I am one that believes my herd is safer to themselves and to others if they do not have horns.  Goats like to head butt for dominance - sometimes they even do this to children - and horns make them more likely to cause significant damage.  Goats also have a tendency to put their heads through the fence when they see something on the other side that they like.  Horns tend to get stuck.  This isn't safe for the goats.

So, we disbud any goats that will be living with us into adulthood.  I should mention that babies born for the specific purpose of meat don't need to be disbudded because they will be sold or butchered before their horns become an issue.  My thought is, why put them through the pain of disbudding if it's not necessary to keep them and others safe?

With Zeus, I chose to have the vet come out to do the disbudding.  It had been quite a long time since I participated in this activity and I wanted someone who knew what they were doing to walk me through it again.  I was also concerned that Zeus' horns had gotten large enough that they might be a challenge.  He was already a month old (I like to disbud at one to two weeks old).

The vet gave Zeus a sedative and some local anesthetic around the horn buds.  He clipped the fur back so that we could really see the horn buds.  Then, with a very hot circular iron (called a calf dehorner), he began to burn a circle around the horn bud itself.  The goal is to burn the bed where the horn grows (kindof like a nail bed on a finger).  This prevents the horn from growing.  He burned it until a copper color appears in the ring.  That is the signal that we have gotten far enough into the bed.  Then he cauterized the center, peel it off, and we were done.  He gave Zeus an anti-inflamatory and an anti-sedative.  Zeus was up and walking around within minutes.

The hard thing about this is that normally, I would not have paid the vet to come do this.  I would have had J hold the kid down and I would have burned the horn bed out without a sedative.  This is how most goat owners do it.  It's terribly painful for the baby...they scream until they eventually go into a sort of shock and get quiet.  It's just too expensive to pay a vet to do this, and there aren't any safe pain meds you can give a goat for this type of procedure.

So Zeus will not have horns.  His are gone.  Hopefully for good.  Occasionally you will get a small part of a horn that grows, called a scur, and you have to re-burn the bed.  We're hoping that the vet did a great job and Zeus will have no other burning experiences.