When a Cow Gets De-Horned

Yesterday marked two weeks since I bought my lovely little Jersey girl, and hard enough to believe, it also marked one week since she was de-horned. In all the haste of caring for animals and trying to develop my homesteading skills, I forgot to write down all the juicy details of what goes on when a cow gets dehorned. Here is the foundation of information I learned about cows and their horns, to start with. A lot of meat breed cattle have been bred (I assume by a series of parents with this gene) to be polled. This means they have no horns, they cant and don't grow them. But, dairy cows have only recently been developed to be polled, and the majority grow horns. Now, lots of farmers keep their horned cattle, but you can have trouble getting the cows into stanchions (the things their heads go into to "tie" them), they may fight with the other cattle - and damage them, they can be a danger to you, either intentionally or accidentally. And so a lot of people get their cows dehorned -like I did. The best time to get a cow dehorned is when the weather is cooler, before the flies are out and when the cow isn't more than 3 months old. If theyre before 3 months, the horns haven't grown very much, and aren't more that a little bump, which gets burned off and prevents the growth of the horn. Whereas, an older cow has more horn, which the vet has to cut. Holly wasnt the ideal age and if the weather was any warmer (as in a typical year) we`d already be into the flies by now. But the vet still came to dehorn her. The vet does dehorning all the time, and in total he didn't take much longer than 15 minutes to do the job. So a week ago Wednesday, the vet came out to the farm, I showed him the cow and told him where I got her. Then he tied her up in the pen with her halter on again. I held the rope tight and he gave her a needle on the left and right side of her head, just below the horn to freeze the area. Some vets will put the cow right out, but after seeing it done it seems like it wouldn't really be necessary. Holly didn't fuss very much at the needles. So then we took her out of the pen, walked her up to the electrical plug where there was a strong post and tied her there. My neighbour held the rope that time, a full time and full body weight job! When Holly couldn't move her head away from the post she got upset and tried to back away by lowering her body. Meanwhile the vet worked quickly. He took his big pair of snippers, squared them up over the first horn, and snip! The horn when flying, a squirt of blood went flying out and the vet grabbed his heat element, and seared the wound quickly to prevent it from bleeding. That stunk a bit.. Then he did the same thing on the other side. Holly was trying to swing around left and right and what a job the vet has to keep her from moving and get those horns done. But he did a great job, he was quick and he didn't charge very much, only $58! When we took Holly back to her pen she was a bit upset, but by evening she was perked back up and was as good as new. Now we have to wait 6-8 weeks for the wounds to heal, that means she cant go outside. There are crevices in her head where the horns were, but they'll heal over. The vet said to cover the wound with a piece of cheesecloth, superglued to her hair if the flies start - to keep them away from bothering her. But so far no flies, which is great! So unless something happens, that will be the only vet checkup for a which for miss Holly. (Good thing too because I don't think Holly will remember the vet wiht very fond memories..)