I see these dehorning clippers advertised. Has anyone tried them? What exactly do they claim their use for? In other words, how much of a scur could you take off with these?

-- Lynn (moonspinner@bluefrognet.net), April 05, 2002

Answers

Is it a scur nipper or a dehorning tool? There is a big difference. One will trim scurs, the other will take the top of your goat's head off...

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), April 05, 2002.

Hi Lynn, goats horns are very different than cattle horns. If you can't simply grab the scur with vice grips, which when the buck pulls away the scur comes off, than you shouldn't be using scur nippers. Or....if you do use scur nippers you had better have you disbudding iron or a pipefitting heated cherry red to stop the bleeding. The scarry part about doing this kind of stuff yourself is that if it is too deep he will bleed into his sinus cavity which means the blood comes out his nose, no way you can stop bleeding like that without forceps and being able to reach the bleeder from the hole you made in the head! We have a young buckling here that has a very bad scur, my vet is taking care of it, I am not going near it! If the scurs are really bad opt for banding instead. I want my guy, who is for sale after breeding season here, to have a nice head, which banding does not give you. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (Nubians) (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), April 05, 2002.

It's funny because my mini goat used to have two scurs about three inches long. Last year when she was playing butting games with her sister (who has a couple small scurs herself - these too came to me this way BTW - all my goats since then are routinely disbudded) one of the scurs came flying off, leaving her with one now so she resembles a unicorn. I would like to have this removed, even if I could just get it down to less than an inch. So I'm trying to figure the best option. I've never banded a horn and would be hesitent to cut into the base.

-- Lynn (moonspinner@bluefrognet.net), April 05, 2002.

Depends on how solid it is, and what kind of a scur. If it's like a mini horn, a spike, then file a groove near the base and band it. If it is flat and wiggles, it'll probably break off eventually, or you can trim it back a little, say by sawing off a fourth of it. I do this when the scur is growing into the animal's head. But really, it depends on how securely attached the scur is, and how big around.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), April 05, 2002.