Dishorning Cattle.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XIX, Issue 1813, 29 March 1886, Page 3

Dishorning Cattle.

The operation of dishorning a calf is so simple and so easily performed, says an American contemporary, that one leela almost ashamed to describe it for publication. In the genus boa the horn is a hollow appendage of the skin. In the rery young calf this appendage ;is merely the matrix of the future horn. At the age of ten or fifteen days this matrix is a small, hairless, movable, prominence. The matrix, together with a small band of true hairy skin, one-eighth of an inch wide, can be removed with one sweep of a strong, sharp pocket knife, and for ever after the animal will be hornless. Throw the calf on its side, let an assistant press the side of the head firmly against the earth ; let the operator now grasp the matrix between the thumb and two Augers of the left hand, place the edge of a sharp knife one-eighth of an inch outside ot the naked matrix, aud, with firm steady pressure, cut through to the opposite side, the knife passing between the base of the matrix and skull, so that a rim of hairy skin, one eighth of an inch wide remains attached to the base of the matrix now amputated and held in the left hand. Turn the calf over on the other side and in a like manner remove the other matrix. The simple operation causes very little pain, the loss of only about loz of blood, and soreness for only a day or two. The calf is not injured or stunted, does not lose its appetite, and the wound heals more quickly than those caused liy castrating. The writer also performed this operation in the fall of 1808, and has performed it annually since. His observations are that the dishorned cattle mature earlier, grow larger, aud never injure each other, lie is of opinion that more hornless than horned cattie can be shipped in a car