Dehorning the calves

Today the 28th of September the calves had their most likely least favourite day of the year, dehorning day, dehorning is when the vet comes in burns all the calves horns off with fire! (OUCH) To get the calves ready for dehorning we had to put every calf mob into a shed/shelter because they were not able to eat/drink that morning when they were getting dehorned!

When the vet arrived they heated up the fire tool and get the anesthetic ready which will numb the calves so they won’t feel the burning! First the vet had to move all the calves into one corner and then the vet jabbed the calf in the tail and spray-painted it so she knew they were done. It looked like a painful job as there were some big ferocious calves in there that liked to bunt! Once the anesthetic kicked in they fell to the ground in a deep sleep and the vet came around and gave them another jabb by their horns so it would work twice as good and they won’t feel a thing she also spray painted them so she knew she had finished that already, that bit was a piece of cake as they were all drowsy and asleep.

Once each calf had been given both jabs the two vets came around and burnt their horns! They wore face masks as it was very hot and made lots of smoke. It took the vets thirty minutes for each mob and there were three mobs to do so overall it took one hour and a half! Once the job was done the vets went off back to work and we had to wait another two hours for the affect to wear off and the calves to wake up! At the end of it the calves came our colourful from all the spray paint that they had put on them, they were blue purple and orange!! At feeding time they made the most of the milk they got as that was their first drink. Are you a farmer? Do you live on a farm? Have you dehorned your calves before? Let me know in the comments below! P.S all these calves are alive!