I have seen this mentioned befoe, but cannot remember where. Has anyone tried dehorning with the bands. I went to a website and it looked successful. I have a saanen doeling I am considering trying it on. Anyone tried and succeeded or failed? Cindy in se ga

-- Cindy (ourfamilyfarm@email.msn.com), March 24, 2001

Answers

Response to dehorning with elastrtor

If there is any way that she can be disbudded with a dehorning iron, with horns about an inch or shorter, do it rather than the bands. The bands will do the job when the horns are bigger, but they are a lot more traumatic and the end result is not as neat. Sometimes the horns will also grow back a little. I have done a lot of horns with the bands, and if there is any way to use the iron, I prefer that to the bands. If small horns are a little too big to use the iron on, you can get OB wire, saw the horn off quickly, and then burn the area thoroghly right away with a dehorning iron. The iron should be heating before you start cutting so you can stop the bleeding right away. whatever you do, don't use the caustic paste. That stuff is a nightmare and I don't know why the goat catalogs carry it. It doesn't even work reliably.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), March 25, 2001.

I agree with Rebecca, the elastrator does not work as a dehorner. If you keep putting them on when they get old and break and finally get the horn off it still continues to grow. and it will deform the growth and sometimes the horn will curve into the head! You can take it to a vet and get in dehorned but make sure the vet has dehorned goats before and knows what he/she is doing as the anestetic(spell) can kill the goat.

-- karen (kansasgoats@iwon.com), March 25, 2001.

I bought a doeling last fall that had not been disbudded, so I thought I would give this a try. The horns were not very big, maybe about an inch long. One of the horns came off very quickly (a little over 2 weeks) the other still didn't appear to be doing anything so I reapplied new band and it fell off within the month (I was getting worried). I do not think this would work on mature horns, and I would have preferred that it been done with the iron at a younger age, but it was an alternative. The doeling did not appear to undergo any discomfort.

-- Terri in NS (terri@tallships.ca), March 25, 2001.

If you go to this site: http://www.greatgoats.com/dehorning.html They have an excellent article and pics on dehorning with bands.

-- Deborah (bearwaoman@Yahoo.com), March 25, 2001.

Cindy, I also felt like some of the above posters about this, then I went to this website http://www.skybusiness.com/goatscanada/index91.html and read it and saw the photos and the shear numbers they did. The other post that someone already gave you was given to me by the author, the goatscanada site has a tendency to go down alot. You can read her info and contact her.

Of course dibudding is the best method period. But with mature horns I certainly would do the elasatator method over any other. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), March 25, 2001.

With new kids, I would always go for the disbudding rather than banding, but sometimes that's not always possible. While I haven't banded any horns on the little guys, we had 2 bucks who got scurs. One of the bucks had scurs which were almost as bad as the original horns would have been. Didn't want to have the vet take care of it, as I think it is too traumatic, so in desperation we banded the scurs on both bucks. Even the smaller scurs took some time to come off, but they did. The buck with the huge scurs lost one but still has the other, altho it looks like it won't be much longer. No apparent discomfort on either buck. It didn't appear to bother them in the least, and when the scurs came off, there was no bleeding to speak of. I've heard they can knock the banded scurs off and have terrible bleeding but this was not the case with ours.

We also have Shetland sheep, who really get some massive horns. Normally you don't disbud or dehorn these guys, but we had one young wether (several months old) who kept continually banging his horns till he lost one. We decided to band the other. No problems whatsoever. For the last 2 years, altho we let the rams keep their horns, we now band the soon-to-be-wethers horns at the same time we band the opposite end just so we don't have to deal with dangerous horns on the wethers. So far, so good.

-- Lenette (kigervixen@webtv.net), March 26, 2001.

I have also tried the banding on a full grown Nubian Wether who ended up with large scurs. Both took several months to fall off, but they both did. I then reapplied new bands to the portion that grew while the bands were doing there job. The scurs were probably 1 1/2 inches across and were very hard to get the bands down and around the entire scur, this is why we did the second job. Looks like the second one will clear them up completely. He did not seem to be in any great discomfort although you know a Nubian, cries just to hear is own voice at times. Good luck with your efforts.

Oh by the way, I know of someone who had the vet dehorn scurs on a year old Alpine Wether. Spent a lot of time and money, and the scurs grew right back.

-- Lisa Banik (lisavanvliet@hotmail.com), July 18, 2001.