What’s the Point of Dehorning? Safety

Last week, Fair Food Fight petitioned dairy farmers for their take on ABC’s piece on dehorning, and it was an excellent discussion. Read the whole thread if you want a nice, strong cup of farmer know-how.

In following up on this thread, I wanted to make clear that I do have a dog in this fight: I detest crappy journalism. After years of watching mainstream media go after organics, I know a “gotcha” piece when I see one, and ABC’s piece seemed unfair and hysterical to me. I’ve also spent enough time on dairy farms to guess that dehorning was probably an accepted practice in organic and conventional dairying alike (“Yeah, why don’t I ever see Organic Valley dairy cows with horns…hmmm….”), and that there was probably a good reason for it, painful as ABC’s video was to watch.

Because I don’t know a lot about livestock, I defer in all such matters to Dr. Temple Grandin, a widely recognized authority on animal welfare generally and livestock specifically. Dr. Grandin says that 88% of the dairy cows in America are dehorned and her research on the topic shows that dehorning protects animals. That said, Dr. Grandin also concludes that “The practice of cutting horns on adult animals is a practice that should be banned.”

So that’s what I had in mind when I asked for a dose of reality from people in the field (ha ha). Here’s some of what farmers were saying in our thread on dehorning:

My family operates a small, conventional dairy farm (about 70 milking head).  We dehorn our animals as babies, usually around 1 month old.  Actually, our veterinarians make regular stops at our farm to take care of the dehorning, and they do not use anesthetic.  Our vet clinc is fantastic, and I trust their judgment implicitly.  The entire process takes only a few seconds, and by no means do any of the calves endure extensive emotional stress.  There is pain involved, yes, but the idea that the process causes any sort of irreperable psychological or physical harm is absolutely, positively absurd.

(Note: Dairy Herd Management addresses why anesthesia is important and cites research showing that dehorning without anesthesia can actually have a lasting effect on cows).

The same farmer (I believe) responded:

There are definite risks involved with any sort of anesthesia, and I for one would be hesitant to use it on a baby.  There certainly is a bit of pain involved in the dehorning process, but without anesthesia, there is absolutely no risk of the animal dying.  When you use anesthesia, there is.  We have a small farm, so the loss of even one heifer would be devastating for us.

Point taken.

In my lifetime, I have seen undehorned animals on neighbor’s farms gore eachother, drawing blood or resulting in serious injuries.  On one occasion, a neighbor called when two pastured cows fought with horns locked and one ripped the other’s udder open needing scores of stitches, the victim cow nearly bled to death.  Only the neighbor’s quick thinking of holding the udder together with clothes pins till the vet got there saved the cow.  Another cow was gored in the eye resulting in blindness.  Cows have a social pecking order, the dominant cows will try to boss the others around physically and that includes use of horns.  Also, horns can pose a real safety problem to the farmers themselves.  Getting bashed by a pointed horn several inches long is like getting stabbed.

Here’s why ABC’s story was a total cheap shot: If dehorning were banned altogether, you’d have ABC running spots on dairy cows goring each other, causing OSHA nightmares for farm labor, and calling for dehorning on US farms. So it’s nothing short of a low-blow to slap farmers like this.

The above entry was from my Twitter pal NYFarmer. He goes on to say,

As to anesthesia, this is something good farmers should be using.  When I was a kid, (decades ago) nobody used anesthesia, it was not even known as available to the average farmer.  Now, both local and general anesthesia is available to help the calf during anesthesia.  First, there is Lidocaine (like what your dentist gives you).  It can be injected around the horn button.  Then, when the horn burner is applied, the calf will not feel it.  Even better is a general anesthesia given by an injection.  This knocks the animal out totally so they do not remember the dehorning process.  Please note though, that like any anesthesia, general anesthesia carries a (slight) risk of the animal having a severe adverse reaction like death.  My sister is a veterinarian who has been trying to show dairy farmers she works with how to use Lidocaine at least when dehorning.  It is better that the calf not react in pain, jumping around and flailing, for this can also result in injury to the calf and to the farmer who is doing this procedure.

Here’s something from an organic farmer (dehorning is allowed in the USDA National Organic Program):

My family and I own an organic dairy farm. We milk around 100 cows. You can read my blog in response to ABC’s Nightline segment and how we handle dehorning. We have a vet work with us to do the dehorning and also use anesthesia. Dehorning is approved by our third party organic certification agency. Visit our blog to see our entire response: www.zweberfarms.wordpress.com.

Here is Zweber Farm’s specific post on dehorning.

Because we hadn’t heard from too many organic farmers, I took the opportunity this morning to call my friend David Minar at Cedar Summit Farm here in Minnesota. Cedar Summit is a pioneering grassfed and organic dairy farm, and Dave and his wife Flo earned the title Organic Farmers of the Year in 2007.

When I asked Dave about dehorning he said, “At three months of age, our calves go to [Minnesota farmer] Jim VanDerPol. Jim raises all our young stock because we don’t have the feed to take care of them on our farm. He polls [dehorns] them for us with his vet — they take care of everything for us. We’re also breeding polled breeds [naturally hornless cows] into our herd, because obviously, that’s easier all the way around.”

That seems to be a common approach on organic dairies, judging by several comments from organic farmers on Twitter, too.

Is this an issue that bothers consumers? Nah. In all my years of working in grocery stores, I never once had a customer ask about dehorning in front of the milk case. It’s probably one of those upsetting topics for us City Mice — even if hardcore natural foods shoppers knew about dehorning, they would probably assume their local organic dairies don’t do it.

But this is why the burden is on us urbanites to absorb the fact that “buying local” is not just happy farmers markets and calculating food miles. “Life can be cheap on a farm,” my mom, an Iowa farm girl, has often told me. A milk cow can heave backward and step on a favorite farm cat, or the lamb you raised in 4-H can get taken off to the processor after its showing at the State Fair. Is that cruel? Maybe, but that’s life. I don’t mean “tough crap,” I mean, that is LIFE, and I do think farm folks are more tuned into that cosmic channel on a daily level than us city kids are. As a result, this broader, sober view of life is part of knowing where your food comes from, and it’s certainly what you sign up for when you decide to “know your farmer.”