Calf Debudding  

 

Planning to take on a couple of calves this spring? If you’d rather they didn’t grow to be adult cows with horns, then we recommend debudding when they are calves.  

Debudding is best done when calves are 3-8 weeks old. By doing it at this age, there is a higher chance that all the horn bud tissue will be removed and so there is a much lower chance that regrowth will occur. The older the animals at the time of debudding (i.e., 8 weeks plus), the higher the chance of regrowth occurring.  

What do we do:  

At RVC, we follow the Best Practice protocols that are recommended for debudding. The following is an overview of the process:  

  • Calves are sedated, so that they are fully asleep, making it much less stressful for them  

  • Local anaesthetic is injected around the horn buds so that it is completely pain free at the time of debudding 

  • A long-acting, injectable anti-inflammatory is also administered, providing pain relief and reducing inflammation for 48hrs.  

  • The hair around the area of the horn buds is clipped and a hot iron is used to remove the horn bud tissue 

  • A topical antibiotic spray is applied to the areas to prevent infection  

  • This is also a great time to vaccinate your calves (we recommend vaccinating against the clostridial diseases and lepto.), castrate/ring bull calves, and check the umbilicus of the animals to make sure they are dry and have healed well.  

Preparing for the visit:  

We cannot debud calves if they look unwell or are scouring, so they all need to be fit and healthy to handle the sedation and procedure. 

Calves must not receive milk for 4 hours before and after the visit! 

The risk of infection is greatly increased during wet weather, so if undercover facilities are not available then the timing of the procedure may need to be rescheduled.

Calves are required to be in a secure yard/pen prior to the visit (and if undercover is available then that is preferrable).  

Get in touch with the team by contacting the clinic on 03 313 7438, or emailing: largea@rangvet.co.nz

Clostridium in Calves

Clostridia are a group of bacteria which live in the soil and produce harmful toxins causing major damage to various body organs. The toxins can be ingested directly or can be produced by clostridia bacteria already living in the gut. Clostridial diseases have extremely quick onset of clinical signs and can cause sudden death. Tetanus and Botulism are two of the most well known clostridia bacteria.

Control of these diseases is best achieved by vaccination of susceptible animals.

Vaccination of calves

Best practice is to give the first vaccination of a 5 in 1 vaccine at debudding with a second and third injection of 7 in 1 (with lepto) at 4 week intervals. A 10 in 1 vaccine can be given instead of the 5 in 1 injection if your herd has a high risk of clostridial infections.