# blood vessels in the horns



## sanhestar (Dec 10, 2008)

Hello,

could the people that have experience in dehorning, removing scurs and/or longer horns please have a look at the following pictures and tell me, if trying to remove the horns at the point indicated by the groove would have caused significant bleeding resp. it that high in the horn blood vessels are still existent. Anatomic picture to proove/disproove are appreciated.

http://www.hof-almathea.de/Bilder/Sonst ... rner-2.JPG

http://www.hof-almathea.de/Bilder/Sonst ... rner-3.JPG

Thanks!


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## Perry (May 8, 2009)

If the notch in the horns is a man-made cut, I would expect the blood vessels to go well beyond that point. If it was a natural break then the blood vessels may well have retracted to before that point. 

We had a goat who received a poor disbudding job. His horns grew, but were very twisted. The tips started pushing back into his head. We had to cut the end off every year. If we cut more that Â½â€ off we had a high chance of getting blood. The horn was eventually cut back to a point about 3-4â€ from the base. It was about 1 to 1 1/2â€ across at the cut. The cut off piece had a porous center. It seemed quite evident that with time the blood vessels gradually retracted from the cut end.


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## Rex (Nov 30, 2008)

I have had goats bleed when breaking off about 4 inches from the tip so I'm pretty secure in thinking that there will be blood under the cut marks.


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## IceDog (Aug 1, 2010)

I had a professional shearer break my old doe's horn completely off in April 2009. All that was left was the quick or corium or whatever it's called. The quick went into the horn about 3 inches.


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## IceDog (Aug 1, 2010)

In my limited experience (from the above incident) the blood did not go into the horn beyond this horn "quick" or the bed that produces the horn material. Though I would expect that the quick would be larger and longer in a larger horn.

So hard to say just where it ends.

Hope this helps.


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## Cazz (Jun 9, 2010)

The blood vessels reach very high up the horns. Even in scurs there is a lot of blood.
Sometimes you can hold a horn and will be able to feel warmth where the blood is - when you can feel that warmth, you can feel that is goes right up nearly to the very top. Some friends of ours cut an inch off the horn of a goat, and it bled really bad. I have normally found with horns that you can (with careful observation) see where the horn looks 'dead', thin and bony instead of strong and plump. (if you get my meaning) 
With our goats, that was about 1/2 inch for large goats, and maybe 1/4 inch for babies. Ringing makes the blood vessels retract, which makes it work. My three suggestions would be: 
Ringing in the groove and after a while, cutting the horn above the ring. (there shouldn't be any blood within a month if the horn is thin where the ring is) 
Ringing at the groove and letting the piece come off.
Or,
Cutting a tiny piece off every month or so, and if you find blood one time, wait extra long before trying again.
Cazz


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## sanhestar (Dec 10, 2008)

Hello,

thanks for all the replies so far.

But I keep wondering about one thing: if you can feel, that the horn is warm, then there are still blood vessels. This goes up almost to the top.

I checked with my goats in the last weeks. On every goat, the warmth in the horns stopped at about 1/3, at most half up the horns. The longer the horns, the longer the "cold" area.


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## Cazz (Jun 9, 2010)

Maybe the blood vessels are too thin to be felt easily far up? But with our goats' horns, It's big and thick warm near the base, just a bit warm mainly up, and the tiny totally cold 
'dead' bit.  
Cazz


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