We haven't had any horns to deal with in years. We got some jerseys and the calves were in need of dehorning. Also a graft holstein came with horns. The first jersey calf was taken to the vet because I didn't want to use paste in flooding rains so she was bigger (3 months or so) when she was dehorned. It became obvious fairly quickly the dehorning wasn't completed. She used a scoop and then cauterize the horns where there was blood. I noticed it appeared she had left a lot of horn on one side and some on the other but I thought she knew what she was doing and it would all fall off during healing. I contacted her a few weeks later and she seemed unconcerned and that she would most likely have scurs and that I could pay again to have her dehorned if I wanted. A few more months later one horn was basically a full horn (just shorter than it would have been) and growing normally again and the other was a part of a horn also seemed to be growing normally just 1/2 as wide. The vet seemed unconcerned about them and we didn't trust her to do it again. We certainly didn't have interest in paying twice. So I bought a dehorning iron and researched how to do the nerve block (which the vet did but the heifer sure fought the dehorning) and set out on the graft steer. It was a night and day experience. He didn't even blink. I didn't have to tie his head or anything. He went off like nothing really had happened. His dehorning has been a success. He never even acted uncomfortable where as the heifer was clearly uncomfortable for near 2 weeks at least. He was only a month old though. The heifer I redid at around 7 month old. She also didn't even need restraint once the nerve block kicked in. One side was very easy and was quickly healed and successful. The other (the much bigger horn) was more of a challenge as the dehorner I had bought was to small for that horn. I was able to get around the entire thing carefully but there was still a bigger piece of horn left after popping off the cap. I was pretty worried it really needed scooping but a few weeks after the other horn scab had come off the chunk of horn came off and she's now perfectly dehorned. I will no longer wait and will do them myself in the future. I wasted time and money by not doing it myself. I know our experience isn't normal. I am sure most vets can successfully do a dehorning. I will no longer do paste. I hope to never have to do larger horns but if I did I would nerve block, scoop and cauterize. In the case of super large horns I think the dehorner
@MurraysMutts got and a hot iron to cauterize would probably be ideal. I would nerve block if at all possible.
