Dehorning calves - take out bud?

jfh

Lads anyone have a tip for cleaning the hole in jet gas dehorner, I have both the old gas canister and express not working at the moment, I have already used the spare jet that comes with the express. Suppose I could just buy a few jets but was thinking surely there's some way, air or solution tgat will clear the jet?

patsy_mccabe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120508740#Comment_120508740

I would think an air compressor would blow it out. Blow it from the front side side.

Sheep breeder

Have done some calves last week and had a change of gas from the usual one and found the heat not as good as before. When dehorned we spray with alu spray to seal.

Silverdream

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120508740#Comment_120508740

Next impossible to clean or unblock the jets, the jet hole is in the microns. There was a crowd doing the replacement jets for the Gas bottle dehorners over in the UK but like everything since brexit a €8 jet becomes €40 landed to the door.

minerleague

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120508740#Comment_120508740

I have the old type dehorner ( used with bottled gas ) and I take off the brass? fitting with the small hole in that and drop it into a small cup with some whiskey in the bottom. Seems to clean it for me anyway 🤷‍♂️ Seems to be a lot more deposits left now than before. Dont know is this the same as what you have??

Lime Tree Farm

I'd go for surgical spirit before wasting the single malt.

Screenshot_20230423_135625_Adobe Acrobat.jpg

jfh

Thanks lads, will try putting it in boiling water and if that doesn't work, surgical spirits. I see fuse wire is an option too, off to Google to see what that is?!

James2022

One year I tried burning a ring one side and scooping out the other which ended up in a one horned heifer. Put me off trying it again.

I prefer to take the bud out to be 100% certain and since it's only an extra few seconds at the point to scoop it out. The best thing to seal with is sudacream. Most cows don't like licking it and if they do it doesn't come out. Seals up the wound nicely and it heals quicker compared to spray or powder.

ABitofsense

https://www.irishexaminer.com/farming/arid-41135794.html

Looks like we won't be doing it much longer. Interesting if this goes through

Castlekeeper

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120586704#Comment_120586704

A bit of anti EU scaremongering from some lobby shill

funkey_monkey

Putting out stuff like that to raise the heckles on everyone so that when the actual report comes out everyone will be relieved that its not as bad as what was expected.

It's a lot of nonsense as they are talking about improving transportation conditions but at the same time talking about banning removal of horns. You can't really square that circle. More likely will end up that horns will have to be removed at the bud stage only - might even make it a vet practice to keep the money sloshing about the system.

patsy_mccabe

An interesting one for you. Yesterday I dehorned a few calves for a neighbour. One set of twins, one a Belgian blue heifer with no horns, the other a black whitehead bull with horns. Sire was an AI BB bull.

Lime Tree Farm

Happened here, British friesen AI'd with HE. Back in the field witnessed a neighbours CH yearling broke in and mount her. She gave birth to black HEx and a snow white CHx calf.

gym_imposter

Hi folks , reopening an old thread , I occasionally will help an elderly bachelor uncle as he is well on in years now but too stubborn to step back , his eyesight is bad so he asked me to help him debud six calves , it's a gas dehorner, question is how many times do you need to turn the dehorner clockwise until the job is complete?

No need to remove the bud from reading this thread

Thanks

GrasstoMilk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121845537#Comment_121845537

Just push it in till you hit the bone of the skull. There’s nothing much to it. You’ll get the idea after the first 1 or 2

gym_imposter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121845883#Comment_121845883

Watched a YouTube video and the guy rotated the dehorner about ten times over a period of about thirty seconds

Aravo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121846098#Comment_121846098

That seems like a very long time. In that time I would have the bud removed.

Dunedin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121846098#Comment_121846098

I certainly wouldn’t go to that extreme in any case it’s not full rotations - just a few twists I’d say 1/4 circles and probably no more than 5-6 over 10 seconds

As said you’ll figure it out fairly quickly.

gym_imposter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121846529#Comment_121846529

That's great, thanks for the replies

greysides

Don't go too extreme with length of time the iron is applied to the skull. Allow cooling periods, if something isn't working as expected. I've seen a calf with after-effects from that. It is extremely rare given the number of operators and the number of calves done though.

minerleague

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121845537#Comment_121845537

Rather than just rotating the hot iron "flat" I rotate it but move it in a "cone" shape so that you are getting the hot part around the complete circumference at the base. If your uncle is like many ould lads you wont be doing it "right" anyway 😁

Aravo

I'm not sure if it was mentioned. If it's suck calves then happy days. If it's sucklers and possibly not doing them in the one day. Issues rounding them up and then seperating then and getting them into the dehorning crate. I think I'd be removing the bud.