Disbudding

[Guest guest]

when we kept goats, I would hold them while my husband burned the horn

buds. They yelped for the duration, but it was only l0 seconds or so.

Afterwards they were immediately on their feet acting as if nothing

had happened, nipping at my nose and hair and leaping about. So I

cannot believe that they were traumatized in any permanent way. I

think the trick is to do it very young...just a few days...as soon as

you can feel the horn bud it is time .

With the way goats behave I cannot imagine keeping the horns in most

dairying situations. Someone, goat or person, would very likely to

get hurt, especially if they are going into any kind of shelter and

there is more than one goat. It is not like keeping a flock in

totally open fields as in Biblical days. We have to deal with reality

as it is now.

I appreciate the Biodynamic point of view. I believe there are

subtle energies that most of us are too insulated from by modern life

to accept as possible. Just as I now know and feel in my gut the

aliveness and benefit of raw milk, and more recently have come to

know on a gut level the benefits of that raw milk coming from the

neighborhood rather than the next state or county, I hope to become

more in tune with other subtleties of nature. However, I am not there

yet.

If you are, Will, I am glad. Just don't set yourself up for

frustration by expecting the rest of humanity to make a blind leap.

Just as it was a process to get this removed from nature it will be a

process to get back.

Ellen