This summer we bought a little buck, a week or two old, took him home and disbudded him(more than once). Since it was a little on the late side, he got scurs anyway. This week, he had one of the scurs knocked off by another goat. Should I burn again where the scur was? I'm wondering if that might keep it from regrowing, or if I should leave it alone. Thanks for advice.

-- mary (mlg@aol.com), December 15, 2001

Answers

You could try burning it, but my experience wwith bucks has been that many of them will have scurs and the scurs tend to come back even if they have been burned. What kind of a scur was it, ie the type that grows sideways and curls, or that grows into his head, or was it a spike, a smaller horn growing upright. I would burn a spike since it presents a danger to the other goats. Otherwise, unless I was going to show him, I would leave it alone. They can only be reburned so many times before they view you as a villian and get very head shy.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), December 15, 2001.

hi Rebekah,

Thanks for the advice. I don't know, really, how to describe his scurs on paper, but they were pretty broad based and blunt, no points to it.

He's a very nice little guy, but not registered, and we definitely won't be showing him.

I really prefer no horns, but maybe we will leave well enough alone for now.

Thanks.

-- mary (mlg@aol.com), December 15, 2001.

Got to remember on disbudding that the horn bud is really a triangle, and not the circle we think. So when burning the circle with our disbudder we leave growth around the edges. Add to this that most disbudders have way to small of an inside diameter to their circles, if you can't fit your thumb about 3/4 inch into the inside (with it turned off :) than it is going to leave growth, especially on bucks, and always on swiss bucks. So retrofit those dibudders with copper 3/4 fittings, sold under the bushing catagory in plumbing fittings. If you can get someone to grind it down for you some it works better and is less sharp. It burns on and around the horn bud instead of just rocking back and forth on it. When disbudding older kids for folks or the scurs you have Mary, you can also use welding gloves, holding a 3/4 to 1 inch copper fitting in vice grips, heat to cherry red with a torch or even your stove, and re hit the head, we have been very succesfull at fixing other folks bad jobs like this. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), December 18, 2001.

Thanks, Vicki, I'll run this one past Hubby, who helps me with this sort of thing.

-- mary (mlg@aol.com), December 18, 2001.

An aside to this, I had my nigerian buck disbudded at about ten days, (wanted to do it sooner but no choice)and he started growing scurs. What I did was simply take a pruning shears and cut the growth back every few weeks. It worked great, was quick and easy and no pain to him. Yes, there is horn growth but it is kept down and not even noticeable. Of course, I realize this is easier on a small breed.

-- Lynn (moonspinner@bluefrognet.net), December 19, 2001.