It seems in the last week or so, I’ve had calves to dehorn
at several farms, and of several shapes and sizes. Dehorning calves seems to be one of the ethical
issues that face agriculture today. Many think it’s cruel to “burn” the heads
of baby calves. However, anyone who works with cattle with
horns, on a daily basis, knows that cows very quickly learn that they have weapons
on top of their head, and use them. When I was a
teenager, I was pinned against the wall in our barn by a yearling heifer. It
was unprovoked; I actually just finished cleaning her stalls and putting down
fresh bedding. Luckily she didn’t have
horns (and my brother came to my rescue). If she did, I would not be alive today
with the way she was pounding her head into my stomach.
Dehorning calves is not a “Veterinary” specific job. Most of
our clients have been trained on dehorning calves. However, there are some that
just prefer to have the veterinarian do it. It's one less job for the farmer, as
they have enough to do. One of my
clients does not dehorn calves if they are suffering from pneumonia or are sick
in anyway at the time they are dehorning the rest of calves that age. These
calves end up getting overlooked and then when they calve in with their own
calf, I get to take off the massive horns.
This is a good workout to say the least. There are breeds of cattle that are “polled,” which means that they genetically do not have horns. Unfortunately, they are mostly beef breeds, and beef breeds are not dairy breeds in many ways…..
Now there is a humane and inhumane way to dehorn calves. Ideally calves are dehorned when they are 1-2
weeks old. At this age, the “horn bud” which is the area where the horn cells
are and will continue to develop, is very small with minimal blood supply. As
the calves get older, the horn is bigger, it takes longer to cauterize the area
around the horn, and the process may be more stressful to the calf.
To start, I “block” the nerve that runs to the area of the
horn on each side of the head, with lidocaine. This is the most difficult part of the
process, but by far the most crucial. After just a minute or two, the area is
completely numb. The area over the horn bud can be clipped so that there is
less hair covering the area and therefore less burnt hair smell during the
process. It also helps to better
visualize the horn bud. There are several different instruments that can be used to dehorn calves. I use a butane dehorner which is a burning dehorner. This dehorner works great for little calves with little horns. The dehorner is preheated so that it is as hot as it can get and therefore completely cauterizes the area so there are no remaining horn cells to continue to grow and cause what we call “scurs.” In these pictures, the calves were a bit older so I was using an electric dehorner, which has a bigger burning area for the bigger horns.
The calf’s head is restrained with either a halter or by straddling
their head with my legs, and holding them in a “headlock” position. The hot dehorner is placed on the horn bud
for 10-15 seconds until the area around the horn bud has been completely
cauterized. The process is repeated on
the other side and the area is sprayed with a bandage spray. These pictures were all taken in succession
and you can see that the heifers went right to eating and hanging out
immediately after they were dehorned.
With proper pain mediation, dehorning is a painless event in a calf’s life. If the nerve is properly blocked, they rarely struggle and the little ones will even continue to suck on your finger while you are dehorning them. As a veterinarian, I am also an educator; as are all veterinarians. It is our responsibility to train ALL of our clients to dehorn calves in a humane way, so that media has no footage to show the inhumane way of dehorning.
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