Horns - Unwanted in Dairy Cattle

Primitive cattle needed horns to fight off predators and to sort out the social ranking within the herd. But in modern dairy farming these duties are redundant so there is no reason to persist in running cattle with horns.

I’ve been surprised how many dairy cows still have horns, particularly when our vet techs are pushing down the front of a herringbone shed reading ear tags and recording aged pregnancy testing data.

What can you do?

• Check calves that have been disbudded carefully when they are being run through the runoff yards for drenching or Lepto vaccination. If the disbudding was botched, the scurs will grow into nasty small horns that can still do damage and should be removed.

• If you have horned cattle on your farm now be aware that from 1 October 2019, it was prohibited to dehorn cattle without the use of local anaesthetic. Talk to one of The Veterinary Centre vets about getting these cows dehorned. There are ways to minimise the pain and distress and other potential negative health consequences (such as infection) that can be caused

  through this procedure.

• Ingrown horns are painful. If you allow horns to become ingrown, or transport an animal with an ingrown horn, you can be fined and risk an animal welfare prosecution. So get them sorted out now.