# Disbudding didn't seem to work



## scottforsyth (Jan 22, 2015)

Hello,

This is my first post. I'm a new goat owner with 3 Nigerian Dwarfs. They are great animals. They are for my 15 year old daughter who is doing a great job of taking care of them.

We had 2 of them disbudded by a vet at 11 days old (we bought the other already disbudded) and their horns look like what I would expect. After a few days a thin scab fell off, and one of them had light bleeding.

However, now it's been 3 1/2 weeks and both goats seem to have their horns growing still. I could understand if one of the 4 horns were bad, but all four horns look like healthy mini horns growing.

Will something else happen and these little horns fall off, or did it not work?

And if it didn't work, what should we do? The goats are over 5 weeks old now.

Thanks!

Scott


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## ksalvagno (Oct 6, 2009)

You can have them reburned. I would contact the vet who did it.


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## TDG-Farms (Jul 12, 2013)

a few pictures would be good. Need to see if the vet did them right and if you are actually seeing horn buds.


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## milk and honey (Oct 31, 2010)

I have had to reburn some of my own disbuddings, especially on bucks! They tend to come back if the 'snot wasn't burned out of them'. But they can be redone.


Sent from my iPhone using Goat Forum


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## ThreeHavens (Oct 20, 2011)

A picture would be helpful to make sure.


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## harleybarley (Sep 15, 2014)

Worth contacting the vet to see if they'll back their work. You paid for disbudded and got scurs. 

Not saying your vet did bad work - scurs are very common. If you don't want to bother with it, post pics and people will tell you what to expect. Tiny scurs usually break off pretty harmlessly. Big ones - can be a bigger problem.


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## scottforsyth (Jan 22, 2015)

Wow, thanks for so many replies!

I've posted some pictures. It was hard to get them to hold still for the picture! It looks like one of them does have some black on one horn, but the other horns look pretty clean. Both are bucks (will be wethers).

It sounds like we should take them to the vet again and have them reburned. I hope it's ok at 5 weeks old.

Thanks!


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## TDG-Farms (Jul 12, 2013)

ya that dis budding didnt work at all. Vet has no idea how to do it right.

Looks like a normal dis budding iron will no longer work. Might have to use a calf iron now. But if he didnt know what he was doing the first time...


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## scottforsyth (Jan 22, 2015)

Bummer. That's what I was worried about.

Ok, I'll bring them to another vet in the next couple days. We used a vet that was a further drive because they were the only ones available right after Christmas. But there are two other vets who are closer and who are well recommended, so hopefully one of them can clean up the mistakes of the previous one.

I guess part of getting new goats is to find a good vet.


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## ThreeHavens (Oct 20, 2011)

Yeah, it's hard to kind good goat vets who know what they're doing. I'm sorry about that.


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