Glimmercroft - Disbudding

E-mail Laura Workman, Glimmercroft, Lynnwood, Washington

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The goal with disbudding is to do the job right the first time, and that means doing it early, with a good, hot iron. Even so, especially with bucklings, it’s difficult to avoid scurs. The best time to disbud is as soon as you can tell where the horns will be. However, I like to give kids a chance to recover from the birthing process, so I do not disbud earlier than 3 days of age. The longer you wait to disbud, the bigger the horn buds are, and the harder the disbudding is on the kids. None of the kids that I have done at a younger age have had any trouble with their burns at all. Click here if you want to read a somewhat graphic anecdote about a late disbudding.

So, this is how I take care of disbudding without a helper.

Supplies & equipment:

** Clippers or scissors
** Disbudding iron - I have a Rhinehart X40. If I were doing it again, I’d spend the extra and buy the X50. A more powerful iron gets hotter and stays hotter. Hotter is better because you destroy the target tissue before the heat has a chance to make its way through and do other damage. Don’t bother purchasing the smaller “Nigerian” tip. The regular goat tip is only large enough for young kids anyway.
** A chunk of wood for testing the iron.
** Wire brush for cleaning the iron between burns
** Furasol spray (not strictly necessary, but a good antiseptic, and it’s cooling. )
** Bath towel and dish towel

Steps to disbudding - Please read all the way through before you begin!

1. Plug in iron. It should heat up for at least ½ hour, really. You can test it on the wood to see if it makes a nice, quick burn mark. If so, it’s probably hot enough.

2. Clip the hair around horn bud so you have about a one-inch circle cleared around each bud.

3. Fold bath towel to make a comfortable place for your knees and the kid. Fold dish towel in quarters lengthwise, giving a strip around 4 inches wide and 2 feet long.

4. Kneel down, tucking kid between your legs, folding its legs underneath its body so it is laying comfortably. Sit down so the kid can’t get up, resting your weight on your heels, not on the kid. Twist one foot inward so the kid can’t back out from underneath you. Lay the kid’s head down flat and place the dish towel over its neck, kneeling on both ends of the dish towel. Tighten up the dish towel until the kid cannot raise its head.

5. Glove your left hand, and hold the kid’s head still, holding the ears out of the way. Even small ears can get singed.

6. Apply the iron, centered over the horn bud, trying to get as much contact with the tip as possible, meaning don’t tilt the tip. Rotate the iron slowly back and forth, while pressing down a bit. You’re not drilling for gold here, but you are trying to burn through flesh, so let that be a guide for the pressure you use. It doesn’t take much. If you can, try to make the iron not precisely centered over the horn bud, but instead a little more forward and toward the centerline, since most scurs come from leftover horn tissue at the front of the burned area toward the center of the forehead.

7. Hold the iron on the head, rotating slowly, for 8 seconds. Use a watch, or practice counting until you can do it pretty accurately.

8. Take the iron off the head, and blow gently on the head to cool it while you wait 30 seconds. Now burn the other side. At this point, you should have nice copper rings, with maybe a little glistening white showing through a “split” in the copper colored area. This white is your goal.

9. After waiting 30 seconds after the second burn, reburn the first side, the same way as the first time, but you’re trying to get a glistening ring of cartilage showing all the way around the horn bud. Rest 30 seconds, blowing gently on the kid’s head, then repeat on the second side.

10. At this point, you’re probably close to the white ring all the way around the hornbud. Place the iron back on the head very briefly, then tip it a bit and “flip” the burnt horn bud tissue off the head. It should look like a little burnt cap, and should come off leaving a solid area showing cartilage. If there is bleeding, after waiting 30 seconds for the head to cool, use the iron lightly to cauterize any bleeding or pinkish areas. Repeat on the second side. Yeah!!! You’ve finished with the burning part! (It’s the worst part about owning goats, in my opinion!)

11. Now, guarding the kid’s eyes with your hand, spray Furasol onto each burned area. This will help to rapidly cool the area. You’re finished!

Incidentally, if your disbudding iron tip does not show a fairly wide, flat surface, you can smooth it down with a sanding block. The wide, flat surface of the ring is important for conducting heat quickly.

Graphic story follows!

I waited 2 weeks with one batch of kids recently, and will try hard to avoid that mistake in the future. Since these were bigger kids, I had to use my larger iron, a Dual Dehorner available from Caprine Supply. The kids did all right. However, they did each scratch at their burns about a week after disbudding, opening up the wound and bleeding a bit. One kid evidently hit a blood vessel while scratching and bled a lot. He lost so much blood, he was wobbly and had no interest in nursing. I drenched him with milk and a little corn syrup to get his energy level back up to where he would nurse, and he pulled through, but I think I came close to losing him.

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This page updated April 21, 2006.