The Moos Room™

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Joe: Welcome to The Moos Room, everybody. I have a confession. We've already recorded or tried to record this episode, and I never hit the record button. We got 20 minutes in before we realized that I had never hit the record button. My co-hosts were quite happy.
Emily: It was good. I will say, Joe, your reaction, although it made me feel very sad for you, was so funny that that's the thing I'm most sad that we weren't recording so that we don't have that reaction.
Joe: There was some profanity. I didn't throw anything, which is surprising, but it was close.
Emily: There was a follow-up late night "I'm sorry" text from Joe to me and Bradley.
Joe: I do not like wasting other people's time, and that's definitely what it was last week.
Emily: He was pretty gutted.
Joe: It's all good. We're back. We're right back at it. I'm surprised it didn't happen before this. We're 40-some episodes in, and I hadn't done it yet.
Emily: I can confirm that we are recording right now.
Joe: We are recording.
Emily: I saw as soon as Joe brought us in, all three of us looked up at the corner of our screen where it says if it's recording or not.
Joe: We're ready to go this time.
Emily: We got this.
Joe: We got it. I've got poster notes everywhere telling me that I can't forget to hit the record button. We're good to go.
Emily: Joe, what are we talking about and actually recording today?
Joe: Today we are talking again, and recording for the first time, our dehorning episode. We're just going to talk about dehorning today. Some of the different options, some of the recommendations that are out there, guidelines from the industry, other things that we need to do. Last time we tried to talk about this, I think we started by talking about, why do we do it in the first place.
Emily: Thanks for taking my talking point, Joe.
Joe: Is that what we did?
Emily: Yes.
Joe: I already told you guys, you should tell me what I said last time.
Emily: Fine.
Bradley: It's like Emily wants to say something, and we're just waiting.
Emily: Why do we dehorn? That is the question. For me, first and foremost, and I know this was something you mentioned second or third, Joe, when you said this last time but weren't recording, and that is human safety, animal safety. Animals can hurt each other. They can hurt people if they have horns and all of that. I don't think we need to get into the details.
Another one is that, Joe, I remember you saying because I had never thought of this, is carcass quality. If all of your cattle have horns and they're fighting and running into each other, and their sides are getting poked, there's a possibility that their meat is going to be bruised when they go to market. Those are the two I can remember. I feel like I'm forgetting another one. I'm going to feel very dumb when you tell me what it is.
Joe: I don't think I had much else.
Emily: Oh, I thought you did.
Joe: It was human safety, animal safety, but I think what I was talking about mostly was that we shouldn't have to do it at all. That's my thing, is that ideally we could just not do it at all. On the beef side, we have figured that most of our breeds are polled, there's no dehorning that happens. I am hard-pressed to justify, if you're a beef cattle owner, having genetics that have horns, I'm very hard pressed to justify that. I can't find a reason that that, to me, is okay at this point in the game where the genetics that are available that are polled, there's so many choices that there's no reason to choose anything with horns anymore.
That goes to the dairy side, too. When you're bringing beef in and you're using your beef on the dairy side, it better not have horns. It's just a huge added benefit that you don't have to dehorn those animals. I don't know, Brad, maybe you can talk about how close we are on the genetic side to getting to that point on the dairy side, where we're actually using polled genetics too.
Bradley: There are polled genetics in the dairy industry, and all breeds have them. We're probably a long ways away from getting an entire polled herd. You can look at some breeds, polled genetics tend to be a little bit, I shouldn't say inferior a lot, but they are less milk production, things like that on a polled bull. That shouldn't stop people from using polled genetics if they want to, but it's a factor to consider that they are less productive or net merit. In the Jersey breed, a little bit different. You see more polled genetics in the Jersey breed, at least offered from AI companies. There's been polled in the Jersey breed a lot more pulled genetics offered for a long time compared to Holsteins.
Joe: What about other countries, Brad?
Emily: We get it, Brad. You like jerseys.
Joe: I'm all on board with it. Just one more reason that you should be using Jerseys.
Bradley: And Hereford, don't forget.
Joe: I know. There are some genetic lines with horns though cast away from those. Bradley, something from last week when we weren't recording. You said in other countries, there's some countries that have more of an emphasis on polled genetics. I don't know if you remember saying that.
Bradley: Norwegian Red has 40% to 50% of their entire herd is polled. They've selected for it for a long time to get to that point. We're talking 20 years to get to a half-polled herd. They've put a lot more emphasis on the polled genetics just because of pain and all of that in dehorning. There are breeds around the world doing that.
Joe: I think that's the direction I'd love to see all of it go because I'm not a fan of the process. I don't like doing it. I still think it's necessary if you do it correctly and at the right time, which is probably what we should talk about next, the age at which we should be doing this dehorning. Emily, I can't remember what you said. What did you guys do growing up?
Emily: We would dehorn calves that, I would say, within the first week or two. We would use paste and put duct tape over it so that it wouldn't get all goopy everywhere or they'd rub it somewhere else on their body. That's what we always did. I know I had said in a previous episode, we had one cow with one horn. Her name was Ragamuffin. Otherwise, our dehorning strategy seemed to work very effectively.
Joe: I like paste. I think it can be used really well if you do it correctly. If you're going to do paste, I like to shave so you can see that tiny little horn bud and you get good contact with the paste, and then the duct tape is perfect. That's a great way to do it because that keeps the paste where it's supposed to be. It keeps other calves from licking it, all that stuff.
Bradley: I think one thing though, people don't realize with paste, is it can cause pain as well. The paste does. I think some people think that oh, we'll just put paste on it and they won't have any pain, or we don't see the pain. That sometimes--
Emily: It's caustic paste, isn't it?
Bradley: Right. It can burn for two to three days afterwards, and instead of having a disbudding where it's maybe a few hours. There are some considerations with paste. If you use paste, nothing wrong with that, but there is pain associated with the paste as well.
Joe: That's going to be a common theme that we talk about today, pain management with dehorning. The other theme that you'll hear from us today is that the earlier the better is really what it comes down to in mitigating the impact of that procedure. For me, I'm a big fan of cautery, so using a burner to burn horns, I think that's my favorite method to go with because it's pretty definitive when you're done and when you've completed the procedure. Again, it's the earlier the better when it comes to that procedure. Pain-wise, what are you guys doing for pain up on the organic herd, Bradley? I think that's a good place to start because there's not as much access to certain things on the organic side.
Bradley: There's lots of things. There's some things you can do with organic. I should start out and say lidocaine, farmers do use lidocaine for disbudding calves in organic systems. It is approved on the organic list so you can use lidocaine, a cornual nerve block, to dehorn. Some farms and others have used tincture. Tincture, this one product we call Dull It, it's a tincture of apple cider vinegar, white willow bark, and some other natural plant-based products in there that we've used to reduce pain in our organic animals.
Joe: The Dull It, how do you use that? Is it topical, or how do you use that product?
Bradley: It's 2 cc's in the mouth before and 2 cc's afterward. It's an oral product.
Joe: You have data on that. It's not just something that someone pulled out of nowhere, out of left field. There's actually data behind some of it, and you guys are also doing a study on it now to enhance that data, right?
Bradley: That's right. We did a study with it couple years ago or two years ago, where we looked at cortisol level, so a measure of pain in animals that were disbudded. We did see a good response. I think long-term, the Dull It helped reduce long-term pain. The lidocaine works right away at dehorning. You have less pain. There's still pain associated with lidocaine. It's not like the pain goes away.
Even when we use 5 cc's lidocaine on each horn bud, there still is pain there. We also looked at, I would say, simulating disbudding where we just handled the animal, put it in the chute, put a cold iron on it so we didn't dehorn it, and they still have a stress response to just the handling of and disbudding. Trying to reduce stress at any time point is essential in any dairy.
Joe: With the dehorning, I think that that's a huge point to make. We always talk about low-stress handling and when we talk about larger animals and milking cows and beef cattle. We have to remember that that applies to the little calves as well. It absolutely applies. Like you said, there's a lot of studies that show that even just the handling causes that same cortisol spike and the stress that's related to that handling.
Bradley: It's really inconclusive whether it works long-term. I think there's lots of things that we learned on it, whether you could-- Maybe there's a time where we use lidocaine and Dull It together both as helping some pain mitigation, or we use some other products along with it. Maybe a flunixin, a Banamine, which is allowed in organic. I think like any good research, it asks more questions than what answers we found.
Joe: I guess if I'm going to look at what I would prefer happen, I always have a couple places that I look. The first place I go for guidelines when it comes to procedures especially is the AABP guidelines, which are the American Association of Bovine Practitioners. It's a group of veterinarians that have come together and basically created, in collaboration with each other, peer-reviewed guidelines for the industry on what to do with certain procedures.
They have a set on dehorning guidelines. Really we're looking at preferably when it comes to age, they should be less than eight weeks, and actually preferably less than two weeks old when we're doing that procedure. I think, to me, it makes sense especially to do it before six weeks of age because then we're way ahead of weaning and we're not doubling up on the stress at weaning. I like the earlier the better under two weeks if you can. I think that's great.
Restraint on that end, you can use chemical restraint. That's something I did in practice a lot. We use a combination of drugs that would actually knock these calves down and they would lay flat out, and still give them lidocaine, still give them NSAIDs, and any kind of anti-inflammatory drug. That way, it's very safe, especially with a burner. I've been burned a bunch of times. I got pretty good scars from them when you got calves that move too much. I like chemical restraint if you need it, or a really, really good chute to allow you to control animals very well.
Bradley: I've seen that before on some farms. It's quite interesting that it's like these calves are just knocked out. They're just laying there almost dead-like, and you just burn them and then they come to in a little bit. Certainly helps, from a human standpoint, to reduce-- because there's a risk factor. Like you said, you could get burned or you can poke yourself with lidocaine, or you name it. There's all kinds of safety things related to disbudding as well.
Joe: That's something--
Emily: I approve, Bradley.
Joe: The safety expert has given her approval. I think the big thing with all of that is that you need to have a veterinarian involved. Those drugs are controlled, and you need to have a veterinarian involved to do that piece of it, at least knocking the calves down. I really like that method with the certain drugs that we use because they're reversible. If there is a problem or I don't like the way a calf's looking, I have something that I can give that will wake that calf up pretty much immediately. I think it's really safe.
Bradley: What kind of good drugs are those?
Joe: I don't know if that should be-
Emily: How do we get some?
Joe: -giving out this recipe on the air, but--
Emily: Secret sauce.
Joe: I know, secret sauce for dehorning calves. It's a combination of xylazine and butorphanol. There are a lot of people that know butorphanol has Torbugesic. Then you wake them up with a drug called Tuloxxin. The fact that it's reversible is really nice, and they come out of it very quickly. It makes it much easier when you have to do something with a really large animal because I don't want that big rumen on a cow flat out and not able to control her airway very much, so it allows you to wake them up pretty quickly. There you go. I'm not going to tell you the ratios, all that stuff. Talk to your veterinarian, they can help you.
Emily: Yes, of course. See the vet.
Joe: See the vet. They got to be involved. Those are controlled drugs. Yes, you got to have the vet involved. As far as these guidelines for pain, definitely lidocaine, that lidocaine block the nerves, the immediate pain, and then ideally something to control the pain longer-term in the form of an NSAID. Like Brad mentioned, flunixin is one of the options, also approved for organic, so that's a big piece. Only downfall with flunixin for me is that it has to be given IV ideally. If you're really good at hitting veins, perfect. If not, it really shouldn't go intramuscular. There's just risks associated with that.
Bradley: What about pour-on? Do you think the pour-on would help? The pour-on Banamine.
Joe: I do know some people that do that. It is quite a bit more expensive.
Bradley: It is, yes.
Joe: That's one of the issues, but I would think it would work. It's not labeled for that and I don't like seeing it on dairies sometimes just because it's not labeled for milking cattle.
Bradley: The pour-on Banamine is not approved for organics?
Joe: No. That's good to put it out there. That is not approved, a pour-on Banamine.
Bradley: Don't say that I said you could use the pour-on Banamine. No.
Joe: No. You can use the injectable Banamine and it should go IV. Otherwise, there is another drug that I love. I love this drug. I think it's excellent. I think it's great for scours. I think it's great for all sorts of things, but it is extra-label drug use. Again, you're going to have to get your veterinarian involved. It is approved in other countries, just not here in the US, and that's meloxicam.
Ask your veterinarian about meloxicam. It can be put in a lot of places. Only place I hesitate is in milking cattle and fresh calves because it takes a while to clear, and because it's extra-label drug use, there is a zero tolerance. It cannot show up in the bulk tank, even the tiniest amount. Talk to your vet about meloxicam. That's a great NSAID. Actually has some effectiveness out to 24, 48 hours on one dose, so it's great.
Bradley: It's oral as well. It's oral as well, right? It's really easy to give. It's not like you have to give a shot or anything. That makes it really easy for farmers.
Joe: It's cheap. Real cheap, so talk to your vet about meloxicam. Burn horns under two weeks old, shave if you have to so you can see them, use meloxicam or some kind of NSAID, try to use lidocaine. It's not that hard to use. Most veterinarians are more than happy to show you how to do that to help you mitigate the pain on your farm. I just taught someone yesterday and she did an excellent job.
Bradley: Here's a good question, and Emily asked it even at the beginning. Why do we dehorn? My question is, do we have to dehorn? Why do we have to dehorn? Do we have to?
Joe: I would say that is very dependent on your facilities and your employees, and the people working with the cattle.
Emily: And that magical M-word
Joe: Management.
Bradley: Management.
Emily: Management.
Joe: There you go. Perfect. That's what it comes down to for me. In most systems, I think it's better to just not have horns anywhere. Now, if you're going to not dehorn, you have to make that decision, because I am very against coming out to take big horns off. I hate it. It's so terrible for the cattle. It's so painful. It's a disaster and I don't like doing it.
Emily: Why would people even do that? Wouldn't you think at that point that they would just let it go?
Bradley: There's lots of reasons. Here's an interesting story. Story time with Brad.
Joe: Story time.
Emily: Story time with Bradley.
Bradley: You can use it for biodynamic farming. I was on a biodynamic farm in Germany, it's Fleckvieh cows. When the cow dies or whatever on farm, you cut their horns off and you put some manure in the horns. You bury them, dig them up in the spring and then add them to a fertilizer and spray your ground. It's a part of a biodynamic fertilization process. of-- Joe's giving me this big smirk like, what in the world is he talking about?
Joe: How many cows are dying that that's going to make a difference?
Bradley: You don't need a lot. Horns are involved in biodynamic farming. Look that one up. Look up biodynamic farming.
Joe: I'm going to have to because I'm very skeptical.
Emily: It sounds like something Michael J Cruz, PhD would do.
Bradley: Yes, that's right.
Joe: Yes. We're just going to call him out.
Bradley: There are--
Emily: The Dutch Belted dairy that I'm going to have can be a biodynamic farm.
Joe: I agree, Bradley, it's not absolutely necessary. If you have really calm cattle and employees that really handle cattle calmly, I think that you can get by with horns and you're going to figure it out anyway because that's what you're going to do up at your place.
Bradley: I know there are some people that do listen to our podcast that do have horns on their cattle, and that's okay. We're going to go into that realm as well as a research project here where we're going to have 30 calves that we're not going to dehorn ever. They will have horns and it gets a little crazy. These two may be able to see. I got a nice, wonderful picture of a cow, a heifer that's a 12-month-old heifer at our research center that has nice horns on it. We do have a few animals so far that have horns, but we're going to do the research because there's nothing that says you have to dehorn your animals. It's possibly no pain for the animal but there comes lots of other implications as you had talked about before.
Joe: If you are going to not dehorn and it's a conscious decision, I'd probably be more fine with none of the cattle being de-horned and all of the cattle having horns than having a mix of both, because then you don't have cattle that have something to use that the other cattle don't.
Emily: That socially has an impact.
Joe: Yes, absolutely. I'm very biased. I want cattle to be de-horned for meat quality, for safety for humans and animals. At the same time, if you feel like your management is good enough and your facilities are good enough, and your cattle handling is good enough, and all your temperament, docility of your cows is good enough, I have no problem with you consciously choosing not to do it. That sounds good. We'll keep you updated on what's going on in Morris with all these cattle with horns, I guess.
Bradley: We're also doing some other dehorning stuff with calves. That's a big project that we got going on where we're going to look at different flunixin, Banamine, we're going to look at salicylic acid, so it's white will willow bark extract as a means of pain mitigation for organic animals. We're going to actually be doing some more pain mitigation stuff from a natural perspective and see what happens. Follow these animals all the way through and looking at their behavior, and then eventually looking at their milk production.
Joe: That's going to be really important knowledge to get, because we need all the knowledge we can on the pain mitigation side, especially on the organic side where our options are limited. I think we've covered dehorning, and we actually recorded it this time.
Emily: Yay.
Joe: This is already much better than last time
Emily: [laughs] We're having so much more fun this time.
Joe: So much more fun because it's recording. I've checked five times.
Emily: Because Joe's not yelling and swearing.
Joe: Oh, there was lots of it. All sorts of it. All right, let's wrap it there. If you have comments, questions, scathing rebuttals about dehorning, about anything else, please email themoosroom@umn.edu.
Emily: That's T-H-E-M-O-O-S-R-O-O-M@umn.edu.
Joe: Check out the website, extension.umn.edu and catch us on Facebook at UMNBeef and UMNDairy. Check out our new YouTube channel. You can see videos about the three of us. Get to know us a little better. The YouTube channel is the University of Minnesota Extension Beef and Dairy Team, and there's also a Farm Safety and Health YouTube channel created by our very own co-host, Emily Krekelberg.
Emily: Wow. You really butchered my name on that one.
Joe: I did. Borg, I said Borg.
Emily: Borg, Krekelborg. Check us out on YouTube.
Joe: That's it.
Emily: U of M Extension, Farm Safety and Health.
Joe: There you go. See, she's much better at it. Just let her do all of it.
Emily: Correct. You should.
Joe: All right. Thank you for listening. Catch you next week.
Emily: Bye.
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