I was just going to post on here how well this thread turned out and how folk were able to give their opinions and the reason for it without all the mud slinging and 'manure' remarks......:( :rolleyes:

Geiss, yours is an interesting post coming from a different country and sharing the laws there.

Thank you.

I saw no "mud-slinging" or "manure" remarks. Only another honest and open opinion.

Heh, that'd be my sister's philosophy.

I'm just thankful I live in a country where I can do my own doctoring, castration and disbudding.
Its interesting the difference in ideas that come from those with "pet" goats and those that come from ones with "working" goats. Not bad, just interesting.
I agree with coso, a lot of it is experience, just like with anything. You use your experience to come up with your opinions, I use mine to come up with my opinions. Different type experiences=different opinions.

LOL!! Some of my siblings as well!!:o

Now that's exactly what I don't need! We have alot of woods & I thought I saw poison ivy in the boys pasture the other day but Dh said it wasn't. So far never seen any here but can't look ever every inch either!
Thanks for the input, I'll watch closer now!

The topic can sprial downward due to human arrogant statements like you made. I do not think because we are supposedly the most intelligent species everything on this planet is ours to do with as we wish. Respect is the key as we all have to live here.
Also it spirals down since people on both sides of the fence have strong feelings towards their personal choice. It can sometimes feel like the other side is trying to make you change your mind and do it their way. I say do what you feel comfortable doing with your own animals.

I disbud for a few reasons, the market I sell to which is quite a few 4H people, kids who would be eye level with a goat horn, people who want pets, and people who have read up on dairy goats and have read their goats should not have horns.
Like I said I hate disbudding but going dairy in this area means disbudded goats. The ones with horns do not sell well, they go for much less if you can even sell them at all.

My two horned goats are some of the nicest in the bunch. It is a few of the disbudded ones who knock the others around sometimes during feeding and when a few are in heat. If it was a constant thing they would be out of here. The two horned ones never pay attention to that stuff, they are calm and could careless. I do not think it is unfair to the rest of the herd of 30 plus disbudded goats that these two have horns. They get along very well with them.
Will I de-horn these two? No to me they are far too old to have it done without alot of pain and I do not plan on selling them.

I guess my post was somewhat controversial......

I could care less what somene else does with the horns on their goats.

I just get tired of anyone claiming it to be "more humane," when I have seen first-hand the damage that can be done with those horns.

If anyone wants to have horns on their goats, more power to them!!!

I am thankful that we finally are left with only one truly horned mature animal in our herd. If she keeps up being a nuisance I may decide to band them this winter. I keep figuring she ought to die soon, so I just leave it be. She is an older Boer cross doe who doesn't get her head stuck regularly.
Beyond that there are a couple of young does who will have one horn or scurs banded this winter.
I did not have to disbud all of the kids born this year thanks to our naturally polled herdsire and his polled daughters, but I have disbudded well over 100 head of kids this year.
Finding a beautiful meat wether hanging dead in the fence a few years back was it. After that I said no horns..even on the meat wethers. We lost over $100 on that goat because of his horns.
Horns do not work in our management style. Just the way it is. So I take the little bit of time when they are young and disbud. They get over it quite quickly. We have over 200 head of goats on the place....one full set of horns, one unicorn , quite a few with small scurs, and one doe with two serious scurs.
Every time I work Twyla, the horned doe, I come away with fresh bruises.
I almost lost my eye to a horned doe. She was sick and jerked her head. I lucked out.
I have seen cows gored by other horned cows. I have seen the ripped vulvas and the ripped sides. All preventable by simply disbudding the calves at less than two months of age. Or using Polled animals.
It really comes down to your choice of management.

Question, if you breed a naturally polled goat to another naturally polled goat, will you get only polled kids? Or os that wishful dreaming?

For some reason, they lose fertility.

As for the humane part - there I have only one thing to say with regards to what is more humane or not. Besides the whole discussion of disbudding or not - they DO feel a whole heap of pain and that pain should be well managed! This also goes for banding and burdizzo and any other painful procedure we may perform on our animals. Yes, they do forget and yes they live on - but IMO they deserve to be treated as humanely and pain-free as we can manage.

Naturally polled goats have issues with hermaphrodism. The paper I mentioned also discussed other ways to achieve lack of horns and there they concluded that polled goats are not a good option in breeding. I will try to translate from Norwegian, I hope it will be understandable.

The article can be found on this link, but it is in Norwegian:
http://www.vkm.no/dav/613105f464.pdf
The title is "Animal welfare consequences of dehorning and castration of calves and kids" and authors are:
"Ad hoc-group: Jon M. Arnemo1, Terje Fjeldaas2, Nina Fjerdingby3, H. Andreas Haga4, Birgit Ranheim5, & Tormod Ådnøy6"

Excerpt from the article follows.

"Selection for polled goats - consequences for intersex
In polled goats hermaphrodism is a problem - doelings will for a good part have clear buck-like features and as adult does they will not be usable in milk production.
In the goat, the position of the DNA that leads to polled goat and intersex (Polled Intersex Syndrome – PIS) is found by Vaiman et al. (Vaiman et al. 1996;Vaiman et al. 1999).
They place it in chromosome 1 (CHI1). The newest research shows that PIS in goat comes from a deletion that leads to absent coding for a chromosome area (Pailhoux et al. 2001).
There are (at least) two different genes responsible, one for polled/horned and one for intersex, that are both "knocked out" by the deletion. While the gene for polled is dominant, the gene for intersex is recessive and must therefore be inherited by both parents in order to be expressed.

These latest published results completes the sum-up Syrstad (1991) made when it comes to the effect of a goat being polled, based on among others Haugen (1960). He summed up like this:

a. The trait "polled" in goats is controlled by an autosomal dominant gene.
(Comment: we now know that PIS switches off the gene for horns.)
b. The same gene is responsible for most cases of intersex in polled goats. This effect is recessive and is only seen in animals that are genetically female.
(Comment: PIS also switches off one of the genes that are important for the development of the doe and leads to hermaphrodism/intersex.)
c. The imbalanced gender distribution (too many males) in many goat populations is due to the fact that a great portion of the intersex animals are erroneously classified as males.
d. About half of the genetic males that are homozygote for the polled gene are completely sterile.
e. Polled does are more fertile than horned females.

The newest results (Vaiman et al. 1997) confirms point c above: in 13 cases of polled intersex animals, all of them were genetically female. New information about the genes that control horns and gender formation in goats has come about recently. Consequences of PIS+ and PIS-/- variants for 2-3 genes that control the earlier formation of ovaries and horn buds from embryonic stage have been shown (Pannetier et al. 2005)
For goats (female), homozygote PIS-/- will lead to the formation of testicles early in fetal development, only 4-5 days after normal males (Pailhoux et al. 2005).
[....]
The fact that half of the homozygote polled bucks are sterile (point d above) and that polled does give bith to more kids than horned (point e) is confirmed by studies in the 60ies and 70ies, but we have not found results from such studies in more recent litterature. Haugen (190) advises to use horned (or dehorned) bucks in breeding to avoid the intersex problem. With heterozygote polled does in the herd, the result should be half polled kids, and these could be used in breeding."

The concern comes in when you have a homozygous polled female...one of the stats I heard places that at a 1 in 8 chance. These homozygous polled females tend to be hermaphrodites.
Polled is dominant, so they need only one Polled gene to be Polled. The concern comes in when Polled is bred to Polled. Usually this is Heterozygous to Heterozygous (one gene for Polled and one gene for horned).
So just using one Polled parent will give you about half Polled and half horned when bred to another horned goat. Rudy has thrown about half and half over his years. A quick easy way to knock a bunch of horns off.
There are breeders who have bred Polled to Polled for years and see no more occurances of hermies than they have with horned to horned matings.
Hermaphrodites still have meat on them. ;o)
We use horned bucks over our Polled Rudy daughters/granddaughters.

I read somewhere-can't say exactly-in an article that if you have the horn bud area cut open within days of birth and "pop out" that horn bud that it will not attach itself to the skull and develop into a horn. I was going to ask on here if anyone had read/heard/done that but have been doing other things. Like getting more goats!

Sooo-how old or should I say young should a goat be if you were to band a horn? A scur horn? How long does it take to fall off? Where should the band be placed at on the horn? What does it look like or are there any problems if it was once burned and then banded?

Wow, do you have studies to back up that it is nonsense not to disbud, or that it is inhumane?

Or is what you have to work with your own, personal experience?

You see, I live in beef and boer country. About 6 miles away from me are no less than 8 Boer farms. EVERYONE raises Boer goats around here (one of the reasons it is so difficult to find a decent dairy goat!).

No one that I know of disbuds their Boer goats. Oh, I am sure that in some areas, it is common practice, but no one HERE does. In fact, there is a hot debate going on here whether horns that curve under next to the neck are better than horns that curve out and up.

So with all of those horned goats around, WHY aren't they having a problem with hernias, gorings, being stuck in fences, etc.? These are mainly cattle people that got into Boers as a sideline for profit....believe you me, to them, the bottom line is EVERYTHING and they don't hold with stuff that causes a loss of stock. Every kid or calf is wonderful, sacred, and needs to be saved!

(Few months ago, there was a HUGE coyote hunt and poisoning because THREE calves were lost to predators in the county.)

The same with horned cattle. Now, the cattle around here are beef cattle, I admit, but they all have horns. Some of them are crossed with Mexican longhorns (for hardiness, pest, and disease resistance) and have HUGE horns. Sets of horns that are longer than I am tall.

These cattle are all over the place. Fellow has a herd across the street from me. There is another herd behind me. When I go into town, most of what I am passing are herds upon herds of cattle, until I get to the Boer farms and then the fish farm.

So why am I NOT seeing gored, bleeding, herniated, scarred up, ripped up cattle and goats all of the time? Why haven't I seen a single cow or goat with their horns stuck in the fence?

Why aren't my friends in Austria and Germany seeing gored, bleeding, herniated, scarred up, ripped up cattle and dairy goats all the time where they are?

If it is such a HUGE problem with dairy goats and dairy cattle, why isn't it just as much a problem in other countries, or with Spanish goats, Boer goats, angora goats, cashmere goats, beef cattle, heritage cattle, etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum?

The meat goat industry in this country does NOT disbud. The cashmere goat industry, as well as the mohair goat industry, does not disbud. The same industries, as well as the dairy goat industry, in Australia does NOT disbud. Why aren't all these industries in all places suffering from these problems everyone keeps saying is rampant in horned goats?

Why aren't the commercial goat industries in Africa practicing disbudding? Or the commercial goat industries in India? China? Polynesia? Russia? None of those places have "pollyanna" laws against it, so if goring, killing of kids, injuries, etc., from horns is such a problem, why are WE the only country that habitually disbuds....and why is it only REALLY prevalent in show/hobbyist areas, and not in all of the commercial industries?

~smiles~ Come on, people...give me some numbers. Some real statistics. What is the percentage loss in a commercial herd due to injuries or fatalities directly related to horns? ANY horned commercial herd ANYWHERE, be that a dairy herd in Iceland or a Spanish herd in New Mexico.

Show me ANY study which had a conclusion that a commercial herd that disbudded or banded had fewer looses and injuries then it had in its previous, horned status. Heck, show me studies that even compared these problems in horned, commercial herds and non-horned, commercial herds where the conclusion was that the non-horned herd had fewer losses and injuries.

I am willing to be converted! Show me facts and numbers that prove that not having horns is safer and healthier for my goats, and I will go out and start banding *today*.

~smiles again~ I await ya'lls replies.

You are not giving any studies either just your observations. Boer goats horns grow differently then dairy goats do. In other countries, and on big farms, losses are accepted as part of the industry. My .02. Everyone has an opinion. Everyone has there own experiences and opinions. Different parts of the country and different countries manage in different ways. I believe this thread needs to die at this point. Moderator please ????

If you want to have horns......go ahead!!! I could care less what you do with horns on your animals.

If you are comparing the horns on a Boer to an Alpine?.......have you ever seen a full gown set of Alpine horns???? IMO, it is like comparing a Chevrolet S-10 pick-up truck to a Peterbilt semi-tractor. :shrug:

I do not have the slightest clue what cows have to do with this discussion......I do recall takng care of a couple patients in the hospital who were gored by bulls.:shrug:

Funny, the last time I saw a web site for dairy goats in Australia, I did not see any horns on their goats.:shrug:

You are the one who wants to see studies.....where are they that show that horns on Alpine dairy goats are not a problem?? When I see a herd with horns, and a number of hernias.....and a recently killed goat......I do not wait to see some "study" to verify what I have seen with my own eyes.

Gee, why is it that all the county fairs that I know of around this area require that Boer goats in 4H be dsbudded???

If you have not seen such results from horns, why would you find fault with my practices.....since I have seen those exact problems???

Just because some cultures do not do something, I do not see where that means that it is a superior practice. :shrug: To each their "own." I want to provide the safest possible enironment possible for my animals.

Bill......no horns allowed here!!......but he does not care at all what you do with horns at your place!!

http://www.lownadairy.com/

http://www.britishalpines.co.uk/

http://www.goldenguernsey.co.uk/

http://www.holdbrookherd.co.uk/

http://goatstud.com/index.html

http://dairygoatsqld.org.au/index.htm

http://www.alltinnis.com.au/index.html

http://www.osmentdairygoats.co.nz/

http://www.anbsnz.org.nz/bucks_at_stud.htm

not saying anything either way but as far as around the world, all of the sites I can find are full of goats with no horns.

I just have one more thing to say, and that is that Boer horns are NOTHING like dairy horns. The two cannot be compared.

Seems like in the UK you are required to use pain relief or have them knocked out for disbudding:

http://wildlife1.wildlifeinformation...Disbudding.htm

Ack in looking around I now want some of these :( lol

http://www.justkiddin.com.au/index.html

Around where I am it is difficult to sell dairy goats that are horned..we disbud all babies that hit the ground here..I really think it is a matter of preference and management. Our fair allows horned goats if it is part of their breed standard, with a dairy goat it is not a breed standard, pygmies, boer and fiber goats it is fine.

Okay from spending quit a bit of time searching it seems that in "western" countries where there is more showing and such, there are more goats without horns. In poorer countries where there are small herds of goats that support their families in meat and milk there are more goats with horns. Possibly due to the people not being able to afford the disbudding equipment or they can risk the possibility of infection or because a lot of time a family member herds and tends the goats all day and so if they get tangled in brush they can't get out of there is someone who can untangle them, or maybe they just have different kinds of fencing that they don't get caught in or maybe their goats are smarter than ours, or who knows. But there are definitely areas where the goats all do fine with horns and areas where they keep the horns off.

Just like everything else what works for one, doesn't always work for another.

Those are adorable Thai :)

OBF, did you check out the "Breed" link in the second link you posted?

http://www.britishalpines.co.uk/thebreed.htm

Check out the picture of the Founding Doe (Sedgmere Faith) of the breed, the picture was from 1903 or so.

The actual WORD "dehorn" did not even come into being until 1885-90... words seldom predate the practices they actually describe. :) Therefore, I am wondering if your British Alpines, as opposed to others labeled "Alpines", are not a naturally polled breed? Dehorning (or disbudding, if you prefer) was not even a common practice in the U.S. (where it originated) in the early 1900's.

As for those demanding studies, well I will humor you a little.:) Although I believe that, following the rules of debate, it is YOU who wish to cause change to the natural condition of the goat, and therefore the burden of proof that such change is beneficial is on YOU, not the ones who believe the goat should be left in its natural state.

However, I don't expect you to even know the rules of debate, much less follow them, therefore, here are a few studies for you:

Commercial feasibility of disbudding large meat herds: http://uvalde.tamu.edu/staff/Machen5.htm

Hmmm, while rambling through some of the studies at South Dakota State University Extension, I ran across an item that said that for showing dairy goats, you "deodorize" male goats by burning out the scent glands near the horn buds at the same time you disbud them? Does anyone do this?

Interestingly enough, the U.K. is one of the few European countries that DO practice disbudding:

" Whilst dehorning or disbudding of young animals is acceptable under EU Regulation 1804/1999 for reasons of safety and by permission from the certifying body, the general rule is that routine dehorning is forbidden. Most other European countries appear to interpret the Regulation so that derogation for dehorning, even in young stock, is acceptable only as an exception. So far, the UK certifying bodies have allowed routine disbudding/dehorning in organic herds without specific permission as long as the operation is carried out under existing animal welfare regulations."

That is from this article on animal housing: http://www.organicvet.co.uk/Cattleweb/health/hous.htm

~shrugs~ There is not much in studies done on goats, period, however, from what I can find, disbudding is commonly done in goat dairies in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., supposedly to prevent problems in the milking parlor (not fences, not gorings while grazing, not to keep people's eyes from being poked out, but to prevent them from catching on the edges of stanchions in milking parlors and slowing down milking), and that Texas A&M did ONE study on whether or not it would be a good idea for meat and fiber herd breeders to practice it and only found two reasons for them to do so:

1. If they had inadequate or improper fencing and couldn't afford to replace it.
2. If they were producing wethers for 4-H or other shows.

Nothing about doing it if they had stock losses from injuries and accidents from horns. Nothing about protecting polled stock. Nothing about all of the stuff everyone here has been screaming about. Simply if you are too cheap/broke to have the right fencing, or if you plan to sell to the people who are going to show.

In other words, no REAL reason.

And yes, Boer goats don't have the same, spectacular horns that say, a Nubian or Toggenburg might have, but Spanish Goats, Cashmere Goats, etc., DO have splendid horns. Boers are not the ONLY commercially bred meat goat in the world.

Now, ya'lls turn. Got any studies? Statistics? YOU are the ones that want to change the way the animal is, do you have ANY scientific evidence on why such a change is GOOD for a goat? Again, I stand ready to be convinced and willing to change my opinion should ANYONE present me with some scientific evidence.

I'll change my mind if you show me evidence. Would you? If I showed you scientific evidence, would you change your mind, or would you demand the thread be closed? :)

-- Still willing to be convinced.

Yes, horns on dairy goats seem to be viewed as a major sin... I personally would prefer horns left on my packgoat, but what if he butted one of the does?

OhhhSo cute!~ I want one toooooooooo:bouncy:

It looks like one study on meat goats.....and one on cattle......

Did I miss something????....none on dairy goats???

Am I supposed to care about some beauracrats in some foreign country????

I love to hear about animals in their "natural state." I believe that would mean living in a wilderness area......never having contact with humans.....;)

As I have said, "I could care less what you do with your animals..."

I don't have the time to go read a bunch of articles, but I did find that the USDA has a study going on now to look at the goat indusry:
http://nahms.aphis.usda.gov/goats/Goat09_Objectives.pdf

You want to see a study on injuries caused by horned goats.....if the study is done by a major institution, then the study proposal would need to go through an ethics committee.
Criteria would need to be set:
1. What nature of injuries would need to be considered "significant?"
e.g. life threatening vs. maiming vs. disfiguring vs. painful (and what level of pain, and how would it it mesured?)
2. What level of occurrence will be considered significant over the course of the study? 1 animal/100 animals/year vs. 25 animals/100 animals/year ???
3. Since goats on live 10-12 years, would a 1 year study be relevant?
4. If injuries or deaths occur, at what point should the study be terminated?
5. Since the potential for injury is a 24 hour risk, what accomoodtions are being taken to provide24 hour monitoring for death or injury?

Do you think it would even get approval by an ethics committee....?????....especially if they were to see a 300# fully horned Alpine buck in rut!!

I did come across this......even Planet Green does not seem opposed to disbudding:
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/hom...iry-goats.html

I am wondering.....if one person who has never seen an goat killed or injured by another horned goat......why do they think that their lack of experience makes their opinion superior to someone who hs seen such injuries????

Bill....just wondering......and waiting on studies on Dairy Goats...:shrug:

Wow, did not mean to start a controversy. In my case disbudding is a necessary evil because I really would like to market to 4-H programs. I was really only lamenting how common scurs seem to be, at least in my area.

I am going to have the buckling re-burned. Have to have a vet do it, can't find someone close by to help and I am certainly not trusting the breeder who botched it the first time around (I had a feeling something was wrong when I picked him up, it looked different even then, but she assurred me it was fine...grrr...) Hopefully before my does get bred and kid I can find someone to help out, or else convince my DH to let me spring for the equipment and learn to do it myself.

Thanks for everyone's opinions and input.

We are with goats for ten years now. Two our does are disbudded ones, we bought them this way. However, I saw many goat owners, who never disbud their goats and they did not think it was needed. We have all goats of our breeding disbudded. I never had any problems with horns and they seem look pretty and natural.

Had (HAD) a dairy doe here who, for some reason, escaped disbudding as a kid. As an adult, she turned out to be a fabulous milker. However, I witnessed her trying to gore other does IN THE UDDER. I wrapped ridiculous amounts of duct tape over and around her horns, in an attempt to pad them. Had to re-apply ever so often, and finally got rid of her. Will NOT own another horned dairy goat. There. Just my opinion, gained from experience.

I would never perform the inhumane act. Period.

Now, you must determine what is inhumane. If you keep a herd of nannies and kids. Dehorning is the best. Does fight endlessly when left to their own devices. No doe can establish true dominance. They get big near giving birth, they have to run after their babies, etc. Kids and the small will be caught in the crossfire.

If you keep your goats in a "natural" herd. With various ages of does, bucks and kids. The Herd buck, The big guy. will always want a good battle. He will run into and smash the overly boisterous apart. He will save a tiny buck or doe with vigor. He kinda makes everyone play easy... They don't want to attract his attention.


So in the end as with most of the controversies it comes down to management style that is the true key to success.

Don't feel bad about the controversy :D This controversy needs to come up once in a while for us all to learn about each other and goat keeping. It's funny when you ask what you think is a simple question and you come back and see that the thread is 3 pages long! :eek:

Those are adorable little goats! I'm so glad there aren't any of those around here!

If you stick around long enough, you'll find that whenever this topic is discussed, it turns into a bit of a shooting match. I try to not get involved, all people have to do is go to my website to see what I do.:D I posted on this topic this time.....as usual, I'm sorry I did. <Sit on your hands, sit on your hands.....:kung:>

But, you know, it's being discussed politely. No one is calling names or making accusations. I can stand a good discussion like this any day of the week.

LOL, Nehi, you should see the food debates in the HQ area!:lookout:

Isn't it good to have discussions like this sometimes, especially for new goat owners here. Everyone learns this way & can see all different points of veiw & perspectives! I agree with Nehi, it's all been politely discussed & we all have our opinions.

It's just a difference in goat management for each person & what works best for that person I guess. I choose not to disbud my goats for my reasons as stated before but have some that are. I have no problems with the mixed horns & no horned goats.

~laughs~ Anyone who has to resort to name calling and personal attacks, IMNSHO, has just LOST the argument. If they cannot come up with reasonable, logical premises for their opinions and must resort to stirring up emotions and debating character, then they have just *proven* that they have no facts to back up their claims.

This is, indeed, an emotional topic, and some people have very strong opinions about it. It's kind of funny, but the thread was dying down to a pleasant "Well, whatever works for you" until Bill stepped in to claim, rather vehemently, that those who did not disbud because they felt it was inhumane were full of B.S., and then went on to infer that it was inhumane NOT to disbud.

:shrug:

Now, to Bill: I think I stated very clearly that I could NOT find studies that dealt specifically with Dairy Goats and horn, because no studies of that nature had been done in the last 25 years that i could find. I even checked sites that charged you to read studies.

Now, if you wish to explain to me how the herd psychology and physiology of meat goats is so VASTLY different from dairy goats that there is no possible way that a feasibility study for one could POSSIBLY apply to the other, go ahead. I'll laugh, but you can do so anyway.

A feasibility study, or, indeed, ANY study of that nature, dealing with horned goats, or dishorned goats, etc., etc., does NOT need to go through an ethics committee. ~rolls her eyes~ The only way that such a study would need to go through an ethics committee is if the University ITSELF had to acquire all new materials, animals, facilities, etc., and the work was done INDIVIDUALLY, and not in concert with other studies.

You really don't know how such things work, do you?

At any rate, the University, Research Center, etc., does NOT need to acquire animals. It just needs to acquire RECORDS and compare them.

Yeah, records, from commercial farms with goats. Farms generally keep records of deaths, injuries, illnesses, etc., and the cause for them.

I included the article on cattle because it discusses the different EU reactions to EU Regulation 1804/1999, which, if you didn't know, applies to goats as well as cattle. Perhaps you were unaware that the same laws in the EU that effected the disbudding and dehorning of cattle were applicable to ALL horned farm animals, including goats, and that is why you were perplexed about me including them?

No, wait, you clearly stated that you do not care what goes on in other countries. My apologies.

The burden of proof, Bill, is asymetrical, but most of it is on you, because YOU are the one proposing change from the natural order. This is called "Economics of Epistemology", and the way it works is this:

1. The natural form of most goats, barring deformations or naturally polled breeds, is to have horns. This is the neutral position, or "starting position".

2. You propose that changing the goats natural form is better for them. Since you are proposing an ontological positive, or in other words, you are holding the position that change is better than what IS, the majority of the burden of proof is upon you.

This has been the acceptable form of debating change in Philosophy, Science and even Theology for hundreds of years...it is nothing new and the rules of such debate are neither onerous nor complicated.

This would be the same for any natural, observable thing.

1. Trees grow towards sunlight. This is their natural state.

2. Trees should not grow towards sunlight; trees should grow towards water.

The burden of proof lies upon whomever stated #2, because that is the change from the natural order.

Therefore, if you wish to debate this from anything other than a purely emotional aspect; if you wish to deal with facts, hypotheses, experiments, etc., then do so. I am willing and waiting to be convinced, as I have previously stated. I am neither inflexible, nor even all that stubborn.

~smiles~ However, I am strong enough that when people make assertions and propose those assertions vehemently that I don't allow them, with all of their emotional grandstanding, to get out of the WORK and RESEARCH it takes to back up the assertions. In other words, I don't allow lazy folks to get away with what is little better than internet posturing.

YOU made the assertion that changing the natural form of a goat is better for them. YOU do the work to either back up or prove your assertion, as YOU have proposed that change is better; not I. If you do not wish to do the work and research to convince others that such a change IS better, then put that on YOUR lack of time or inclination, and don't try to pass it off as someone else's responsibility.

Okay, off my soapbox. :):) Hope everyone has a GREAT day!

As I have said before, I have seen first-hand the damage that horned dairy goats can do to each other.

I see no need for studies. You are the one that has insisted on studies.

BTW, can you provide us with a lst of universities that have herds of horned dairy goats??

IMO, I have a responsibility to my animals to provide an envornment that is as helthy and as safe as possible. For me, that includes dsbudding.

IMO, when man started dometicating animals, man changed their environment, and some things that may have worked to the animal's benefit in the wild may no longer be benficial for them.

You mentined comercial herds of dairy goats.....I do not know of any commercial herds that hae horne animals. Do you know of any?

Probably 2 of the biggest and best known are:
Redwood Hills
http://www.redwoodhill.com/
(Gee, I don't see any horns on their goats..... but it says they are "Humane Certified.")

Coach Farm
http://www.coachfarm.com/

Please share with us some large commercial dairy goat farms that do not disbud.

I am still waiting for a specific study on Dairy Goats.......I don't need to see studes when I have seen the injured goats with my own eyes.....:shrug:

Who is debating??......I am simply speaking from what I have witnessed. :shrug:

A few weeks ago a truck had an accident about 200 yards from my house. It overturned. I feel like you would not believe that a truck overturned without seeing a "study" done on that accident.

I have seen the damage that horned dairy goats can do. That was enough for me. I believe that the humane thing for me to do is disbud my goats.

I do what I feel is best for my animals.