We had our first kidding almost 3 weeks ago (2 bucklings and a doeling) and it went really well! We disbudded on day 3 (or 4?). I wanted to do a third go around on each bud but my husband stopped me - he was really concerned about brain damage, etc. - it looked pretty good and we had the copper rings, but not quite as bright and thick as I thought they should be. Now the kids will be three weeks old on Tuesday and I've been seeing the boys' buds growing for the past week or so; the girl has smaller little bumpy growths as well. Should we re-disbud?!
I'm pretty bummed that I didn't follow my gut and get it right on the first go, as I loathe the thought of having to do it again. I'm trying to cut myself some slack, as these were the first babies we had and didn't have anyone experienced to help (all our other goatie friends have horned goats). We are planning to keep the girl and we have a toddler (who loves her) so I REALLY don't want scurs or horns.
On another note, the boys are available - Castle Rock Guiness (out of Harvest Moon and Baileys Irish Cream) x Castle Rock Buddy.
Thanks for advice!
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At only three weeks of age, I might redo it, especially on the doe. Could you post pics? I am wondering if you really did a half decent job or missed the boat and are getting horn growth. We sometimes don't even disbud does until three weeks, if they are small. I don't usually see scurs until at least six weeks.
Rebekah, sorry you're going through this! I did redo my buckling when he was three weeks old and it was beyond awful. He is now 2 months old and doesn't appear to have scurs so at least it worked, but I'd never do it again. I have found that most people don't care if they have scurs and seem to expect them with boys. They are really hard to get right the first time. One of my kids from last year grew small horns (not scurs) and when I sold him, she said all her bucklings always had some amount of scurs and she didn't care that he had these little 1/2 horns. Anyway, I hope that makes you feel better ;)
Thanks, Patty. I'm sorry to say that reading that thread confirmed my fear that we will have to live with the (crappy) job we did. I had read on the fiasco site that she also feels re-burning is too cruel. It's an awful feeling to know we and they went through doing it but we gave up before we got the job done :( It really didn't look too far off perfect, so I'm sort of amazed by how much growth I'm seeing... Guess it just goes to prove that old saying right that close only counts in "horseshoes and hand grenades". It sucks that we had to learn our lesson about getting it right the first time the hard way. I guess it's a common rookie mistake, though... I will definitely know better next year, and it helped me to see that it only took them 5 minutes to recover from it. In retrospect, I really wish we had done only one a day but our schedules just didn't allow for that and the boys were born with buds (the girl got hers on day 2). I hope I can find homes for the boys as I would hate to see them butchered simply because we couldn't get the disbudding right!
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Rebekah, sorry you're going through this! I did redo my buckling when he was three weeks old and it was beyond awful. He is now 2 months old and doesn't appear to have scurs so at least it worked, but I'd never do it again. I have found that most people don't care if they have scurs and seem to expect them with boys. They are really hard to get right the first time. One of my kids from last year grew small horns (not scurs) and when I sold him, she said all her bucklings always had some amount of scurs and she didn't care that he had these little 1/2 horns. Anyway, I hope that makes you feel better ;)
HERE is a link to a discussion on this forum about that. Hope it helps. :)