Disbudding is a vital part of goat keeping if you want to keep yourself and your herd safe. About 4-6 days after birth, and no later than 10 days after birth, it is time to disbud your dairy goat kids unless you don't mind if they grow horns. A hornless goat is safer because horns can cause injury to you or your goats. We don't feel comfortable disbudding them ourselves, so we take our Nubian or Alpine dairy goat kids to a vet, and they are given a pain killer before they are disbudded. Many dairy goat owners do the disbudding themselves and don't give the kids a pain killer. The disbudding procedure is clearly painful for the kids, so we want to make sure they feel the minimal amount of pain as possible.

Sometimes the buds aren't completely removed, and scurs grow. A scur is a horn that grows back, but it is generally looser than the horn would be if it was never disbudded. These scurs often fall off by themselves when the goat plays the head butting game with other goats, and then they will grow back, and fall off again. A couple of times our vets have tried to be overly careful because if the disbudding is done wrong, it could cause brain damage. You might want to get your goat dehorned if the disbudding wasn't successful enough. This procedure is much more painful than a disbudding.

Owners of large goat herds find it more economical to learn to disbud their goats themselves. If you want to learn this procedure, you can research goat information about disbudding on the internet or in books about dairy goats. Another good way is to have your kids join 4H to connect with other goat owners who will show you how to do it. You will have to buy disbudding goat equipment if you choose to do it yourself.

Our goat milk seems to have a slightly less goaty flavor when it comes from a doe who was dehorned successfully. Dairy goats who have scurs seem to have a more goaty flavor to their milk.

While they are getting disbudded, we have them tattooed and castrated or banded. Try to find a vet who specializes in dairy goats.