Ann, me too!

Some years ago I bought a heifer that had been disbudded - and she eventually regrew small stumpy horns. What went wrong?

They didn't kill all of the horn tissue, and some of it continued to grow.

They are called "scurs" and indicate an incomplete job. The paste is still around, but has to be done really early. I preferred the burning, if done properly it was not much of a setback for the calf. And once we started using the lidocaine, it never seemed to bother them. Never an "off feed" thing, it seemed.

Also with the paste there is danger of it getting down into their eyes and causing blindness.

The paste does not work if a calf is still with it's Mom. She might lick it off. We had a set of twin calves where they got very sick, and pulled the one with horns and bottle fed it. We used paste on it and it worked well. The other one was polled anyways.

In reality scurs are not a poor dehorning job. They are incompletely attached horns - like growths, usually only attached to the skin, although with age they can eventually become attached to the skull, apparently that happens more on bulls than cows. They are not horns and are not considered horns - in fact, only polled cattle can have scurs. They are also not removed. That way everyone can see that the animal is scurred and not horned. Big difference when breeding for polled cattle. Although some scurs can grow pretty long, most are only a couple of inches big or even just buttons. They are also sex linked - like color blindness in people. A male only needs one gene to show scurs, a cow needs to have both genes to display it. Horns are recessive, meaning a cow has to have both genes to grow them.

If you see those little lumps on a cows/ calf's head, see if they move. If they do, they are scurs. If they don't move, they are horns. ~Jan

From your description, my calf must have had horns not scurs. She was from two horned parents.

Yes. since horns are recessive, a cow has to have a horned gene from each parent. Breed two horned cattle together, you will always have a horned calf ~Jan

I have been working on banners the last 2 days, just made up this one from a photo I took here in town. I was going to upload it as a joke but then I thought maybe not, this is All Things Plants, not All Things That Eat Plants so I decided to add it to a farming thread and I came across this one. (how's the calf Dave?)

A perfectly lovely banner!

Oh, I love it! Go ahead and upload it, please, Sue. I can make an exception for such a beautiful pastoral scene.

The calf is doing great. We decided to give it to our oldest child for her 14th birthday and she was so excited she cried. She's been taking care of the calf since day 1 so it made good sense to let her own it. She's actually getting pretty big!

For the banner & your daughter!

Sue, I think it will make a great banner.

Dave, great gift for your daughter's birthday.

OK, uploaded!

The calf sure has done well and is now almost a year old! Here's recent photos:



Our daughter is going to list her for sale this weekend. If the calf doesn't sell then she'll get her bred and keep her over winter.

Really good looking heifer, but super cute kid!

Great looking heifer, beautiful girl!!

Nice to see your Daughter....How about a group shot of all the children?

Kind of off topic but here it is. Taken in May at Epcot in Disney World:

Lovely family!