Shaving the top of horns to turn them downward

[Gargan]

I have heard of shaving horns on cattle in order to make the horns turn downward. Does anyone know the exact procedure for doing this? can it be done with a knife? how deep of a cut do you make and etc.. thanx in advance

 

[Doc]

Never heard of doing that. I worked for a horned Hereford outfit for a year & we used weights to do it.

 

[Gargan]

i hadnt heard of it til today, was watching superior auctions on tv and the auctioneer was talking about a set of horned hereford bred hfrs he was about to sell. He said they had thier horns shaved on top to turn them downwards. Im sure someone on here has seen it done or knows  more about it. i have a replacement hfr that has horns and id like to try it on her. I have a cow that i dehorned and she is a bitty to get in the pen since that day. It makes it about impossible to AI her, so, id like to try the shaved thing on the hfr im keeping

 

[justintime]

When I was a kid, my dad had mostly horned cattle, and he sold lots of bulls to a large Montana rancher. This rancher wanted the horns left on them. I can remember this rancher taking as many as 25 bulls a year so we had lots of horns to train. We used to do this all the time. We just used a small saw and we would cut the top of the horn point off and it was amazing how much the horn would turn down. We also used to drill a small hole through the ends of each horn and tie chain across the animals forehead and secure it with wire through the hole in the horn. It only took a few weeks before the ends of the horns would be turning down. Once the end of the horn started to turn down we would take the chain off and the horn would continue to curve down. We also used lots and lots of horn weights over the years, and I still have several sets hanging in the barn.

Personally, I don't know why you would leave the horns on an animal but that is your decision. I have dehorned lots and lots of cattle over the years and to my knowledge I have not seen any that were any harder to handle after being dehorned. I guess there is always a chance this could happen, but I suspect your cow may have other temperament issues besides this.

 

[kfacres]

we dehorn just danged near every animal on the place.. some have temperment, almost all don't.  Plenty of show heifers get dehorned in April or may, and t urned around and taken to a show in June and July...  Showed some over the years that still had a hole where the horn once was. 

This isn't doing the surgical stuff, this is with the gougers and on the big ones the over grown bolt cutters.