I have four kids. One is two months old and sadly she is horned. I was so scared and not prepared when she came that we didn't have a burner. The goat expert at the feed store told me to use paste and how it wouldn't hurt and so on. Well that was the worst thing ever! He said to leave it on for 6 hours and we barely made it to 30 minutes. It was the longest 30 minutes of my life. I felt like a horrible person and needless to say she still has horns.
So today we burned out bucklings. No where near as bad as I thought. I just hope we did a good job. I really don't want to go back in and have to do it again. They are four days old and we just felt their buds yesterday for the first time.
Still haven't felt anything on their sister. Maybe tomorrow. But I think I can do this. Although all I did was hold them.....I finally looked for the last one to be done. Man does the burning hair smell awful!!!
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We had to have that done to two of our goats. The first one was pretty bad. The poor little guy had bandages on forever and was just a mess when he came out of it. But he also had a bigger horn. His sister also started to grow a horn, but we took her before it got too big and in the end it almost looked just like another disbudding.
Margie McCoy at River Dance Farm said:
I have a very hard time with disbudding but once its over its ok. I have the vet do it. Now sometimes the bucks end up with the scurs on them and if its bad I get them removed. They put the goat under anastesia and saw the horns off. Then they are stitched up and wrapped and put on Banamine for pain for 3 days. That is also a tough one but I think its more humane to do it this way. Horns sure are a problem! I really feel for you with the store telling you that stuff and you watching the agony.
I just did my first two for the first time, and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be... but MAN!! I feel for you on the older one!! You might look into having a vet do that one.