horn weights to shape cow's horns?

[francismilker]

I remember vaguely as a kid my granny putting some kind of clamp on weight on the old jersey cow's horns that caused them to turn down over time. Any of you know anything about this?
I truly do like seeing a cow with horns. I just don't like the thought of getting hooked while she swats at her back to get a fly with those harpoons and accidentally the kid's or me hurt.

Is there even such a product as a "weight" or "horn shaper"? Or was it just something an old timer came up with? "necessity is the mother of invention"

[Ronney]

I would think that you probably can weight a cows horns to make them turn down - but why would you bother. I should think that if you kept the cow long enough the end result could end up being disastrous. The upward sweep is in the first part of growth and is set in stone. Any weighting would pull the horn down from the boss rather than change the shape of the horn wouldn't it? and eventually you would have a cow with a face covered in horn. I don't know but logically, to me, that's what would happen. Why not cut off the a 1/3rd of the tip end and keep them trimmed as the horn grows.

Most of my cows have horns, the most dangerous set belonging on a 12 year old Jersey. I've never been on the wrong end of them. She/they rarely use them other than in a head-tossing attitude and for breaking up their hay - and they definately use their horns for that. A friend, who breeds Angus and detests horns, was watching me milk one evening. Afterwards she said that she found it interesting that I seemed to sub-conciously make allowance for horns when handling the cows in that I appeared to leave an extra margin to allow for any head swing that might catch me. I'm not aware of doing this but quite possibly do after having always had cows with horns. I do know that I have never been caught by horns.

Cheers,
Ronnie

[copperhead46]

I see the horn weights at some of the farm and ranch stores and I think maybe Lehmans, might have them. We used to put them on the bulls horns to turn them down. They are still around, you just have to look for them.
P.J.

[ksfarmer]

We always used them on horned herfords to get that downward curve. You have to put them on as they are growing to change the shape of the horn. I think you can still buy the weights at some farm stores. It was once standard practice for breeding bulls. I don't know if its as popular any more with so many polled breeds.

[francismilker]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I'll start looking for them.

[Up North]

We visited a fellow last summer that was training the horns on his Jersey heifers. He had a fence tightening type/weighted thing attached to their horns. He drilled a hole at the tip of each horn and had heavy gauge wire pulled through the holes. He connected both the horns with this wire and had a heavy round piece of metal connecting the wires. I think it was some sort of old bearing. The piece of metal served two purposes. It was a means of tightening up the wire to get the horn tips to point inward and it weighted the horns so that they tipped downward too. It looked funny on the heifers but he had an older cow there that had beautifully shaped horns. Of course the contraption had long been removed from the cow. Heather

[Up North]

President Lyndon B. Johnson did:
http://books.google.com/books?id=62v...cattle&f=false

And you can too:
http://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.h...2-00b0d0204ae5

[Sara K]

There is a small family run company in NH that ships them I will probably do it to my yearling. I love the look of her horns but it's just not safe with all the kids. I agree with the pp that I probably allow extra room for her horns without noticing but now 7 months pregnant it concerns me more (although starting with weights won't do much for this pregnancy!!) I feel I may not move out of the way of the head shaking as fast.

Sara

ETA - the store is New England Ox Supply. Should come up on google sorry I can't post links.

[jticknor]

This is something I've been looking into lately, because I've gotten the proverbial bee in my bonnet to train a team of oxen. There isn't a whole lot of information left these days about such endeavors, so I've been looking everywhere. Drew Conroy has a couple of excellent books, and they include some information about bending horns, as does www.ruralheritage.com. I really started looking for information about horn bending because I was watching Braveheart not too long ago, and there is a team of oxen in that movie that have horns that come around their faces and almost touch about four inches in front of their noses, which looks really wild, and I knew couldn't be natural. Of course it could be a movie effect type deal, but it looks real. It seems like a good alternative to dehorning if you are worried about the dangers involved with horns, and if you are training oxen, they have to have their horns, for stopping loads, and for the yoke if you are using a head yoke. I also saw a horned hereford in a book that had horns like these, but not nearly as distinct, they turned down and in towards the face about 2/3 of the way down the face.

[blueberryhill]

Search "cattle horn weights" in your computers search engine and it will bring up a couple sites where you can order them. I wish I had ordered some for my horned hereford cow. Her horns grew straight out. She's gentle but I have to be aware of how close she is to me when I'm out with the herd.

[blueberryhill]

Dehorning should be done in the colder weather when there are no flies. It can be very bloody.

[springvalley]

Fracis you can I think you can still get horn weights, my neighbor use to raise horned herefords and gave me a set, but I don`t know what I did with them. Keep looking. Thanks Marc

[copperhead46]

Hry Jamie, I saw your horn weights yesterday at Stillwater Milling.
P.J.

[francismilker]

Thanks PJ. I'll get some. I've got one heifer that I'd like to train the horns on. I think they're just simply beautiful on a family cow with their horns turned down.

[copperhead46]

I do too, they still have the look, but without the "pointy" parts
P.J.