DEHORNING OF CATTLE

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 225, 19 June 1929, Page 13

DEHORNING OF CATTLE

„ Slr ’~ ln your issue of June 13 “An Old Farmer” writes: “Dehorning is, without doubt, the proper policy when it can be carried out,, and “For practical purposes cauterising is only a theory for the ordinary small grazier." I do not agree with either! Where dehorning can be carried out, cauterising can also, and at infinitely less cost of both time and trouble. Whatever “An Old Harmer’s” experience may have been, if he could not manage to attend to his breeding cows once a week, he is not on a paying wicket. A point I have not seen touched on is that of breeding out the horns, The more advanced cattlemen take a short cut, and run Aberdeen Angus. They are spreading all over America, and they top the Chicago market, so also Smithfield—-but for the devotee of Herefords and other horned breeds. _ Why, if they use the plea of cruelty in trucking and shipping—don’t they do as they have in Australia, and even in New Zealand on a smaller scale—breed for a hornless herd. It certainly takes time, but once arrived at comes to stay. Cauterising, the next best, means ft yearly job, but a certain one if done as it should be.

Dehorning is butchery, neither more npr legs, and could never have the approval of the genuine breeder, I am entirely with “An Old Farmer 1 ’ when he says “the hollow left for the wind to whistle through must cause intense pain,” yet you hear it said that it cannot be so bad, since they go away and start feeding, apparently unconcerned. Have these people ever seen a man have his arm sawn off without an anaesthetic? He asks for a bit of grass to chew, or something to bite on, and sees it through. A pole bullock gets the dray on top of him, and loses one or both horns —cut the yoke, and he will go to the nearest toi toi. The bullock is at work with a day or two’s spell, and so is the man soon after, but they have verily gone through exquisite tortures.

If there were no alternatives to dehorning. its advocates might have some excuse, but as there are, they should not be listened to.-~-I am, etc., FAIR PLAY. Hawke’s Bay, June 17.