Dr. Naylor's Dehorning Paste

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TexasJerseyMilker

TexasJerseyMilker

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My Jersey heifer is almost 8 weeks old. I can feel her horn nubs under the skin. What are peoples opinion of Dr. Naylors dehorning paste?
 
I have used it. Not my favorite method. I had a calf one time got to rubbing its head. Got an ear against the paste and burned a hole in its ear. I prefer a hot iron to dehorn.
 
I use Dr. Naylor's paste on every calf I can find horn buds on as a newborn. Never seen an adverse affect on thousands of calves. But by 8 weeks a hot iron would be preferable, or come this winter a shot of Metacam followed by removing with OB wire.
 
TexasJerseyMilker said:
My Jersey heifer is almost 8 weeks old. I can feel her horn nubs under the skin. What are peoples opinion of Dr. Naylors dehorning paste?
Click to expand...
Dehorning paste is best used asap after horn buds are identified.
IF you follow directions no problems.
However it is also easy to use without following directions. That way is a lot faster
to apply, but can occasionally cause problems.
 
Take scissors and trim hair off the button. Get a popsicle stick and dab paste on the buttons . Being a coach I had athletic tape . I put a single strip over each button and then wrapped another around the head and over the two strips . Not too tight , just enough to hold it in place . By the time momma or the calf got it off it had done it's job . Used it several times with my shorthorns .
 
You're way too late for paste. It works best when they're just born, before they are smart enough to rub it off.
 
as long as they're little nubs you feel under the skin it'll work fine.. Hard to describe how much to use, best I can do is imagine how much you could put on a fingernail without it overflowing.. (don't actually do this of course) a bit of duct tape over it after.. clipping the hair is optional, but it does help you see where to actually put it
 
We used Franklin dehorning paste the whole time we had Herefords. Mr FH cut the hair around the nub with mule shears and applied the paste. It worked really well, but he did it when they were just a few days old.

Good luck!
 
Thank you for the advice. She's a bottle calf. Just recently I feel the bumps under the skin although she is almost 2 weeks old. Some advise it has to be done soon after birth but I could not feel any sign of the bumps then. We left our dehoring iron in Texas. $80 to buy one seems a bit steep to do just one calf. Neighbors don't dehorn or I would borrow one.
 
TexasJerseyMilker said:
Thank you for the advice. She's a bottle calf. Just recently I feel the bumps under the skin although she is almost 2 weeks old. Some advise it has to be done soon after birth but I could not feel any sign of the bumps then. We left our dehoring iron in Texas. $80 to buy one seems a bit steep to do just one calf. Neighbors don't dehorn or I would borrow one.
Click to expand...
Use the paste asap... it'll work fine... clip the hair, follow the directions no worries.
I've done 'em a month old... but the younger the better.
 
Mine is 2 months old. There is no horn material showing. The bumps are under the skin but they are not loose and they don't slide around. It is like her skull has grown two little bumps. Is it too late to use paste?Thanks
 
The guy at the Milkyway feed store, a dairy oriented feed store, after I described this calf he said this would be a perfect time to paste her and to follow the instructions. I just don't want to mess up the looks of this pretty little heifer and have scurs or have to dehorn her later with with a saw.
 
My cowboy husband helped me, He estimated she weighs between 130 and 160lb.. He did not flank her, he cast her with loops of rope around her body and tied her legs. I shaved the hair off the bumps there were actually little keratin spots the size of baby fingernails. While we had her down we vaccinated her for lepto, blackleg, tetanus and clostridia and some other diseases. I rubbed the bumps with a wire brush, put rings of vasaline then the paste. I'll tell you what. Duck tape does not stick worth a darn to that grease and it can mess it up. In the future I would put the paste first, then the vasaline. Since I could not tape her head I cross tied her. Jarad tied rope hobbles on so she could not scratch her head with her foot. I gave her a bottle and we had a beer. It was a beautiful day under the apple tree. After 6 or 7 hours had passed I wrapped her head with duc tape and put her up. The secret is to get long strips and come up from underneath and stick tape to tape . Jarad said it would sure take a lot of time to do a trailer load of calves this way. We had left his dehorning iron in Texas
 
But they might still rub or scratch their head and get it in their eyes. I have athletic tape but it didn't stick either. That was a hard day for the calf,she has never been worked. She seems tired today but she eats good.
 

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