Removing scurs???

[Karen]

I have a doe & a buck that have scurs & one doe that looks like she has one horn or just a really thick scur?? Anyway, I was wondering what you guys thought about having the scurs cut off & reburned instead of having then scurs surgically removed? I'm just not liking the fact of them having holes in there heads, but also don't want them going through the pain of being reburned if it doesn't work. My vet will numb the area etc. but I hate this thought too. I'm so torn on how to go about this situation.

Thank you...Karen

http://www.bluecreekminis.com

 

[Deborah Niemann-Boehle]

I'm not sure what will happen with the does, because I've never had a doe with scurs, but the buckling's will definitely get bigger as the hormones kick in. I have had bucks get their scurs knocked off, and they almost always regrow. We've had one buck that we've cut them off a couple times, and they keep regrowing, but we didn't burn them. I don't think burning would do any good unless you get all the way to the skull, which I don't think is really any different than having the vet do it surgically.

Karen said:

Deb..they will be 9 months old in a few weeks.

[Karen]

Deb..they will be 9 months old in a few weeks.

[Deborah Niemann-Boehle]

I don't think there's ever an easy answer to the question of how to handle scurs. The pictures don't exactly look like a horn, so someone sort of attempted to disbud her, but obviously missed a lot. You didn't say how old they were, but the sooner you get it done, the easier it will be on them, because they'll just get bigger as they get older. If you're going to have the vet do either procedure, I'd go for surgical, because I doubt that it's that much more traumatic than having the horn cut and burned. I think surgical has better odds for not coming back, but you might ask the vet what his record is. I would go with the one that's closest to 100%, because you don't want to have to do it again.