Someone on a goat group that I belong to on Facebook shared this article today, regarding the injection of clove oil into the horn buds of infant goats as a necrotizing agent to prevent horns from growing and to serve as an alternative to disbudding. Have any of you heard of this before? Deborah, do you feel that it would be a more humane/less stressful way to go about it?
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I read the study about a month ago and found it very interesting. I'm hoping they will do some follow-up studies and release more info on it soon. It did bring up some other questions for me though. I know when I put ground cloves on a tooth-ache that it made my entire mouth go numb. Do you think that diluted clove oil applied topically could work as a safe numbing agent to use prior to disbudding?
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
It was shared by a friend of mine on Facebook about a month ago, and there was a huge amount of discussion on it. The bottom line is that it needs to be done a few more times in a clinical setting, and we need more details. You don't have enough information in that article to be able to do what they did.
Wow, I hope this is a thing. I'm new to goats and can hardly give vaxxes, let alone even think about disbudding a goat. Then again, this is also an injection so there is that. I'm really interested in hearing others' opinions on this.