# how do you cut off goat horns



## nick220 (Jul 20, 2012)

I have a goat with about three inch long horns and he keeps getting his head stuck in the fence. I read that you cannot cut them off due to the horns have blood in them. Does anyone have any suggestions how to cut them off.


----------



## shakey gizzard (Jul 20, 2012)

Cut back the grass on the other side of the fence! Or put a roll of this up until he/she's big enough to not fit through the wire!   http://www.signaturefencing.com/rolled-mesh-fencing.shtml?gclid=CI2IqpWMqbECFQ67KgodMTYA-w


----------



## SarahFair (Jul 20, 2012)

Its really no good to do it once they are big... but there is a way you can band this. Doing this though can cause scurs and you dont want that. They grow funny and break off easy then you have a goat in agonizing pain bleeding all over the place.


To prevent it in the future if you have kids young enough you can burn them off.


Best thing you can do is tape a piece of plastic pipe or wood between them..


----------



## wildlands (Jul 20, 2012)

I have burnt them off with a de horner early but once they are as big as you say then it is to late. I have one that I only used one season, maybe 5 goats. I left it on a little to long and thought I had burnt a hole in the poor felas head. After that I went to using paste to chemicaly burn the horn bud when they are about 1 week old.    Knowing know that the horns is how a goat help to regulate their body temp I do not dehorn but use electric fence on my pastures. I just run some electric fence around the pasture about 18" up and that will keep them from sticking their head through the fence, also works to keep predators form trying to get in.


Ken


----------



## luv2drum (Jul 20, 2012)

I put some chicken wire up on the larger fence to keep the kids from sticking their heads through the fence. We had our buck debudded but scurs keep coming up. So we stopped after that and just let the kids horns grow. The electric fence works good too, we had to do that to keep our buck from crawling over the fence.


----------



## shakey gizzard (Jul 20, 2012)

Them horns make great handles! Just sayin!


----------



## nick220 (Jul 21, 2012)

Thanks for the information. I do have an electric fence but I am always having trouble with it not working. I will mess with it today to see if I can get it working so I can keep him from putting his head through the fence and the horses off the fence. This goat is a  boer goat I was told so in a couple of months his head should be too big to put his head through the gate.


----------



## wildlands (Jul 22, 2012)

Nick most electric fence problems come from not having a enough ground rods in. If you can get them in 3- 8' copper rods works best. I had a little problem with mine just before this rain started again. The ground got so dry that the rods were not making good contact. I had to take a 5 gallon bucket of water and pour around each rod.  Second issue I have is deer running into the fence from the other side and grounding out the electric fence on the field fence. Check those two things and you should get the fence working well enough to keep them off of it.


----------



## jjy (Jul 22, 2012)

This will do the trick
http://cotrancorp.com/component/vir...age=flypage.tpl&product_id=574&category_id=26


----------



## nick220 (Jul 25, 2012)

How many ground rods do you have in the ground. I have one about a foot away from my charger and in the ground about four feet. I have to get my fence fix tonight ASAP because my horse it terry up my fence.

JJY if I cut the horns off with that tool I will have a bloody mess on my hands wouldn’t I?

Sarah I tried to put a stick on his horns and taped it on but he pull it right off within eight hours. I have to try it again.


----------



## wildlands (Jul 25, 2012)

Usually need at least 3 ground rods. Go ahead and spend the money on good 8' copper ground rods not rebar. Spacing should be about every 16 feet. Use a solid copper wire for the ground using ground clips to connect them to the rods so that there are no breaks in it from the charger to the end ground rod. Get them in the ground as far as possible. I actually dug a small hole for each so that the ground rod and wire was under ground and I did not have to worry about running over it with the mower.

Those saws work but you only need to cut the tips off as the horns are full of blood vessels to help cool the goat. I would make sure that I have some of the powder stop bleed stuff to help clot the bloodif I went with this method.


----------

