Disbudding Question (because of a horrible story)

Okay, thankfully, I don't have to worry about this for a long time as we don't even have out little goats yet. But a 16 year old girl in our group has been showing goats (Nubians) for several years and has participated in disbudding before (with her last 5 babies) ...but I'm concerned.

With the help of another 4Her, they disbudded 3 Nubian kids the other day - they're about 3 weeks old. The little buck had some serious little horns, I guess. Anyway, she was telling me last night that when they went to do the little buckling, they popped off the horn cap (?) too soon and he started bleeding (and screaming) all over the place. She said that her friend tried to put the iron on it again and..well I don't know what exactly happened but she said that the little guy literally "passed out" from the pain! She thought he was dead until her friend said that he just passed out.

I guess her friend's dad came out and cauterized the horn and did the next one - she said it was awful and she almost threw up. I guess the two little does were fairly easy with one of them gardly making a peep. But the story was enough to make me dizzy and sick. I would have passed out myself if I had seen this.

So my question is: should a vet or someone with more experience have done this in the first place? Because I'm telling you, had I seen that with my own eyes I would have thrown my body over the others and begged them to leave the horns there.

When we get our two babies this summer (and IF we breed them) I'm tempted to leave their horns rather than risk what sounded like torture to me. (When I had goats previously, our Nubians came disbudded - and our Pygmies had their horns).

ouch!! Poor kid! I wonder if they were pressing too hard and leaving the iron on too long? I don't think it takes much more than the weight of the iron? I understand why you said no, that one should probably be done by a vet. Catcher has scurs, but they fall off when he butts heads. Isabel has one, but it only barely comes up from the hair at the moment.

Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:

Well, I said no, although I'll take the sympathy, because I was pretty upset when I hung up the phone. No way was I going to disbud a buck that age that belonged to a total stranger -- too much could go wrong, and the possibility of scurs is huge. And I do feel sorry for the buckling. It's not going to be pretty, and he'll probably have scurs because the hornbuds are so big/wide. I recently read the disbudding section of "Goat Medicine" and learned that if you hold the iron on there too long, you can cause brain damage or death, which is why it's important for the iron to be red-hot. It's quicker, so less chance of overheating the brain. Glad I read that after we'd done a couple hundred successful disbuddings -- by successful, I mean that we never fried anyone's brains. Although as bad luck would have it, someone posted on an Internet group a week before we did our first disbudding (eight years ago), that they burned through the skull and into the brain of a kid. That sure freaked us out a bit.

Chris McLaughlin said:

Ohhh...nooo....poor thing! (YOU and the baby goat)

Replies

Deborah Niemann-Boehle April 14, 2011 at 9:06am

Probably only four or five seconds at a time.

Rachel Whetzel said:

So deb, how many seconds to you leave your iron on?
Rachel Whetzel at MigMog Acres April 13, 2011 at 3:34pm

So deb, how many seconds to you leave your iron on?
Deborah Niemann-Boehle April 13, 2011 at 9:31am

I have seen instructions for disbudding that said to leave the iron on for a count of ten. We have never done that. We decided not to do that after I read about the kid that died, because we figure that we can always apply the iron again -- but once you go through the skull, you get no second chance. They were even talking about burning through a goat's skull at the vet school when Caboose had her c-section, because they were doing a cow dehorning at the same time. They had to practically drag students out of the c-section to go help with the dehorning. I could certainly understand why -- seeing baby goats is way more cool that dehorning cattle. And we saw the cattle dehorning students afterwards -- they had blood splattered all over them. This is why I disbud my goats before sale. If someone decides down the road to have one dehorned, it ain't pretty.

Adrienne said:

ouch!! Poor kid! I wonder if they were pressing too hard and leaving the iron on too long? I don't think it takes much more than the weight of the iron? I understand why you said no, that one should probably be done by a vet. Catcher has scurs, but they fall off when he butts heads. Isabel has one, but it only barely comes up from the hair at the moment.
Adrienne April 12, 2011 at 11:53pm

ouch!! Poor kid! I wonder if they were pressing too hard and leaving the iron on too long? I don't think it takes much more than the weight of the iron? I understand why you said no, that one should probably be done by a vet. Catcher has scurs, but they fall off when he butts heads. Isabel has one, but it only barely comes up from the hair at the moment.

Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:

Well, I said no, although I'll take the sympathy, because I was pretty upset when I hung up the phone. No way was I going to disbud a buck that age that belonged to a total stranger -- too much could go wrong, and the possibility of scurs is huge. And I do feel sorry for the buckling. It's not going to be pretty, and he'll probably have scurs because the hornbuds are so big/wide. I recently read the disbudding section of "Goat Medicine" and learned that if you hold the iron on there too long, you can cause brain damage or death, which is why it's important for the iron to be red-hot. It's quicker, so less chance of overheating the brain. Glad I read that after we'd done a couple hundred successful disbuddings -- by successful, I mean that we never fried anyone's brains. Although as bad luck would have it, someone posted on an Internet group a week before we did our first disbudding (eight years ago), that they burned through the skull and into the brain of a kid. That sure freaked us out a bit.

Chris McLaughlin said:

Ohhh...nooo....poor thing! (YOU and the baby goat)
Chris McLaughlin April 12, 2011 at 10:56pm

I am NOT ever doing disbudding.

I am NOT a wimp - I swear to you. I give my own vaccines, I clean horse sheaths (really well :D), and I clean maggots off of rabbits who have flystrike with no problem.

But if I killed a baby or fried its brain or any of a million things that could go wring I would FREAK.
Deborah Niemann-Boehle April 12, 2011 at 9:54pm

Well, I said no, although I'll take the sympathy, because I was pretty upset when I hung up the phone. No way was I going to disbud a buck that age that belonged to a total stranger -- too much could go wrong, and the possibility of scurs is huge. And I do feel sorry for the buckling. It's not going to be pretty, and he'll probably have scurs because the hornbuds are so big/wide. I recently read the disbudding section of "Goat Medicine" and learned that if you hold the iron on there too long, you can cause brain damage or death, which is why it's important for the iron to be red-hot. It's quicker, so less chance of overheating the brain. Glad I read that after we'd done a couple hundred successful disbuddings -- by successful, I mean that we never fried anyone's brains. Although as bad luck would have it, someone posted on an Internet group a week before we did our first disbudding (eight years ago), that they burned through the skull and into the brain of a kid. That sure freaked us out a bit.

Chris McLaughlin said:

Ohhh...nooo....poor thing! (YOU and the baby goat)
Chris McLaughlin April 12, 2011 at 7:38pm

Ohhh...nooo....poor thing! (YOU and the baby goat)
Deborah Niemann-Boehle April 12, 2011 at 6:20pm

And in the world of bizarre serendipity, I JUST got a phone call from a total stranger asking me to disbud a 3 1/2-week-old Nubian buck that she bought last week. The seller told her she just needed to get him disbudded by a month. This really frustrates me. Reputable breeders don't do that, but with the increasing popularity of backyard herds, I'm afraid we're going to see this sort of thing more often. :(
Adrienne April 11, 2011 at 9:34pm

Yes, when we took our first goats to the vet the smell was quite bad. I understand how you feel. Before I did this years kids I shaved their heads...It helps a lot. We did it on the front porch with the windows open while the weather was nice.

Tammy said:

I am a Registered Nurse and have seen many things. However, the disbudding is the worse thing that I have seen. The smell alone makes me extremely nauseated. Thankfully, my husband has now taken over the job to do the disbudding. Plus: we are purchasing a polled buckling from Deborah. I was able to do the disbudding, but never seemed to get deep enough. Our vet has done some of the disbudding, but even he had to redo at least three of the goats. So I will be thankful when we start having some polled goats in our breeding. :)
Tammy April 11, 2011 at 9:01pm

I am a Registered Nurse and have seen many things. However, the disbudding is the worse thing that I have seen. The smell alone makes me extremely nauseated. Thankfully, my husband has now taken over the job to do the disbudding. Plus: we are purchasing a polled buckling from Deborah. I was able to do the disbudding, but never seemed to get deep enough. Our vet has done some of the disbudding, but even he had to redo at least three of the goats. So I will be thankful when we start having some polled goats in our breeding. :)

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