disbudding- did I do it right??

[1sttimemom]

So last yr was our 1st try and I now have a lovely purebred Togg doe with huge scurs which are practically normal horns. We didn't do good at all.

Now are new twin kids are just 1 week and we attempted them a couple days ago. The doeling had a "cap" pop off and is shiney white underneath. Is this skull, did we go to far? Her other cap popped off but was blackish with some tissue and she had an aterial blood spurt so we caterized with the iron. This happened right when we were doing them. The buck kid had both caps pop off and were blackish. We did them each 3 times for 8-10 seconds and the horn caps popped off the 2nd time which is why we did the 3rd. We got the copper rings.

Did we do right? I REALLY don't want scurs/horns. Our Lamancha buck who was given to us has horrid curved scurs and breaks them off all the time. It's a bloody mess, altho it doesn't seem to bother him too much.

[Alice In TX/MO]

Three times for 8 seconds ought to do it!! (Assuming that was One Mississippi, and not one two three said quickly in panic.)

[Hollowdweller]

I normally burn around 10 seconds and make sure the cap does come off.

But I normally disbud around 5 to 7 days.

You want the outer ring to be copper colored.

The way I do it is burn one horn bud, Then I tatoo one ear. This gives the skull time to cool down. Then I do the other. Then I tatoo the other ear.

Then I do a short 5 second burn on each bud pushing the iron to the front and back because I find that eliminates scurs.

Then I take the kid and spray the Fight Bac teat spray on the holes since the propellant in it is cold.

Then I feed the kid. That way if you've burned too much or something you can tell by the fact that the kid isn't eating well and you can give more TLC.

For bucks I often burn 3x. The main burn and then two where I put the iron halfway to the front and halfway to the back so the burn looks like 3 interlocking circles because bucks are so likely to have a wider area of horn bud. But I normally wait a bit to let the skull cool down between burnings. That's the key.

[1sttimemom]

OK, they seem to be doing fine a couple days later. And they were immediately back up and ran to mom for a drink when we did them. We also gave a break in between the burnings. A few mins to keep the electic iron hot and to give babies a break and cool off. They were 6 days old when we did it.

[Drewusa81]

I always burn down to the skull and have never hurt a kid. I figure if you get down to the white of the skull, you know you have burned through all the blood vessels and nerves that could cause a scur to develop. I have over the years probably disbudded almost 100 kids for myself and other people and have never had any problems. I must do a pretty good job because I have people call me to come disbud for them because other people reccomend me. I only burn for 7 seconds at a time and take a break before going to the other side. I do 2 rounds of 7 seconds and a final round of 5 before buring the cap down flat on the head. I never have scurs. I also prefer to disbud at a week or so old. It sounds like you took your time and honestly that is a big factor when it somes to doing the job the right way so I am pretty sure you will be happy with the outcome.