C2- /Yll ^m fork H&U QloUfs? of Agrtrultur^ At (HormU Imiifraitg 3tl|ara. N. f . IGibrarjj Cornell University Library SF 912.H11 Dehorning cattle, castration of bulls, c The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924003242363 DEHORNING CATTLE, CASTRATION OF BULLS, CATTLE SHEDS, AND WARM DRINKING- WATER, H. H. HAAFF, HEMAN'S GEOVE, HENRY COUNTY, ILLINOIS. p. O. ATKINSON. ILLUSTRATED. CHICAGO: Eand, MoNallt & Co., Printbes and Enqbavebs, 148 to 154 Monroe Street. 1886. COPTBIGHT, 1886, BY H. H. HAAJ'I'. Heman's Gkovb, Henbt Codntt III. RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED FORTY FARMERS, AND OTHERS, WHO FACED THE BLIZZARDS OF FOUR JANUARY DAYS, IN 1886, TO TESTIFY IN MY BEHALF, By the Author. PREFACE Gbntle Rbadee: We sometimes have to do those things we would not; we then proceed to make a virtue of the necessity. The writer has been beset and besieged by hundreds of letters from Maine to Mexico, asking for information on the subject of " dehorning cattle." He has been heralded from one end of the Republic to the other as the " Great Dehorner," etc. He has successfully treated his own cattle, of all ages and sizes, for years. He has instructed many others in the art. He talked to the people time and again and never failed to convert his hearers. He has written on the matter in a score of papers and demonstrated the thing again and again in hundreds of cases; perhaps, therefore, if his experience is placed in book form he may not be open to the charge of pedantry in so doing. May the time come, and come speedily, when a horned brute will be as scarce as a Mulley is now. May the time soon come when dehorning will be as common as castration now is. THE AUTHOR. DEHORNING CATTLE, CHAPTER I. HOW I CAME TO DEHORN CATTLE. " How came you to dehorn your cattle? " said a friend to the writer not long since. " You are made notorious everywhere by this practice. You are the best advertised man in the United States to-day, except Barnum and Jay Gould, and I'd like to know how you came to do it?" Well, if you care to hear the story, here goes: From a boy of thirteen my dream was to own a big farm, and lots of cattle and horses. I had an idea that 500 cattle and 100 horses was about as tall a hemlock as any one man could climb ; you see that was before the days of the plains. But I had to work until I was forty years old at my profession before I was able to own a farm — in the meantime I became a most enthusiastic book farmer (I lost all that poetry, how- ever, some years since). I had a standing aversion to horns. From the rescuing of a neighbor; from leaping from a second-story window en ddshahilld to save another neighbor, pinioned by a cow to the earth; from that to the bedside of my own disabled wife, in- jured in the same way, then to a hired girl stripped and torn, and then to the loss of my own clothes by a cold horn run up my back, and a suit for several thousand dollars because (they said) I "kept an ugly bull ; " from these to the goring of my own colts, hogs and cattle by horns, there was, I say, from all these, but one issue: " Horns must go." The ancient Roman adopted as his motto: " Carthago delende est." Mine became: "Cornu delende est." I hated horns, denounced horns as horrible excrescences, devilish appendages, abominable pro- (7) tuberances, unnecessary additions, and declared that they or I must go. I run to hogs and neglected cattle. Quit hogs at 1,000 because they would not lay the dirt the right way. I run to horses, had several killed by kicking, strapped a short piece of chain to the fetlock joint of the kicker and stopped that loss, only to grunt audibly when any "chain" brutes came around at their display of ap- parent inconvenience, and then I went into cattle again and began' to think. I downed the " best cow," roped her, sent all the boys off but one, took my saw and scalpel, and began. I can hear her groans yet. Ge Whillikins! but didn't the blood fly when I ran the knife around that horn at the base ? I can taste it yet. I was now in for it, fairly elected, and my blood was up, and if that infernal old rip of a cow had had ten lives I would have sacrificed them all to study my way out — not in anger, not in malice, not for fun, oh no; but solely and surely to know if we had to live on and on and endure the soul-harrowing scenes daily witnessed in my yards. Well, the knifing over, we used the saw and cut out the horns, and used the shears, and pared up the skin and put some stitches in, and turned her loose. Presto, " a beauti- ful Mulley ; " but oh, my my, wasn't there a sore head? However, in a few weeks " Old Gray " was well, gave just as much milk, and was gentle as a lamb ever after, and she lived for years the "best cow." This was dehorning under difficulties, and I don't care to face the family again in such a condition and with such feelings. Is there no way out of all this? said I; and then, after further trouble and loss by horns, in sheer despair I put up a brute and sawed off her horns half way down; that was awful! awful! but not so bad as before, and so I solemnly concluded to kill one animal in order to find out all there was to it iy sawing off her horns close to the head. I watched my chance; took an ugly one, of course — one that was ready for the beef barrel. Off went the horns, close up. I turned him loose, expecting to see him drop, or soon bleed to death. There was a lot of timothy hay in the yard; do you think, that infernal brute shook his head and went to eating. I was astounded. There I had been covered with blood in my first case, and had it squirted by the quart in the second and third cases, and now when I dared to cut close to the head the wretched brute stopped bleeding and went to eating. I fairly whooped and yelled that " the devil was to pay and no pitch hot; " that the evil one was in the cattle anyhow. I kept on thinking. I examined heads. I tried another in a few days with like results. I saw it all at last, the reason, plain, plain. Wonder I had not thought it out before. I became a dehorner at once. People called me " mad,'' "a brute," "a little off;" said I ought to be hung; proposed to mob me; and said one: "I'll head the crowd ;" but here I am now, and this is just how I " came to do it." 10 CHAPTER II. THE ADVANTAGES. " Dehorning seems to gentle my cattle. They ain't half as bad or ugly-like as they used to be." So said a farmer who had learned the art of me. Precisely so. " Well, why is it ?" I'll tell you. The cattle know their power with horns just as well as you do, and they know, too, when that power is gone. That reminds me of my neigh- bor, Bill Taber, of Whiteside County. Mr. T. had a Holstein bull— a big fellow — a ton or more of bull ; a man-killer. I dehorned him. A few mornings after, Mr. T.'s little boy was seen leading the bull down to water by the ear. Mr. T. yelled, and ran out, when the boy cried, "Oh, hold on, pa; don't get scared! the calves drive old Dick now." And so they did. Like Sampson, old Dick knew his strength, or rather his power for mischief, was curtailed. I bought Dauphin 20th, an imported Hereford bull, of A. A. Crane & Co., for a very low price. He, too, was a man-killer. My little boy led him, after dehorning, thirty miles by a tie strap. He weighed 3,300 pounds; dehorning settled him. You ask for the advantages of dehorning. Well, let me couple them together. If dehorning should become a uniform — a common — practice, there would follow a saving of : 1st. — 300 lives of human beings in the United States each year. 3nd. — The lives of 100,000 cattle and horses each year, not to mention sheep and hogs. 3rd. — Nearly all loss of calves by abortion. 4th. — One quarter of pur winter feed for cows and stock cattle. 5th. — One half our shed room. 6th. — All the manure now wasted around sheds and stables. 7th. — All loss in shipping cattle. Now, my friend, what have you to say against me and my position? I have stood threats, and calumny, and abuse, and prosecution, and 11 persecution, and boycotting; now what have you to say? Nothing but " god-speed and go-ahead." " But please explain why these results will follow." Well, then, first. Allowing that there are two hundred deaths by horns yearly, that would give only ten as the quota for Illinois, and that is under the mark; that is to say, the average would be one death to each 300,000 of population (nearly). The loss of stock no man can more than estimate; but when one considers that every farmer almost loses animals right along by horns, it will be seen that the estimate is not too large. The saving on feed comes, of course, because cattle without horns will pack and keep warm and quiet, and because warmth saves feed. I have carefully tried the matter for three winters, and can say that one-quarter my hay is saved to me in this way. A friend who tried warm water on a herd of 400 short-horns, tells me that warm water alone saved more than one-tenth of his feed. In the interest of advanced agriculture, these things are worth considering. As to shed room, I keep 350 head of cattle in a shed 30x160 feet. Does anyone suppose that one-half that number of cattle can be kept in that shed with horns? No ; not 100 head. As to the manure question, I simply say that cattle without horns will all, during cold weather, seek and find a shed. They will eat and at once go to a shed, and if, as I do, and it may always be done, the shed is boafded up on all four sides (save one or two ppenings on the south) and there is warm water inside, I say your manure will be there — housed and pure — just what you want for corn. As to shipping cattle, I will repeat the statement made to me by a representative of the Drover's Journal recently. Said he : " They have tried all kinds of patents and nothing yet found but bruises the cattle, and there is but one way out — but one solution of the question — and that is a car with no protuberances and no horns on the cattle." Said a ranchman recently: " Give me the losses on the plains by horns and I will outrank a Vanderbilt in wealth in a very short time." Said another: " Give me the losses by horns in shipping, and I will rank with you." And I will add, " Give me the losses by horns 13 in the States alone, on the small farms and at the houses of every- day people, and I will become a Croesus in wealth in ten years.'' If, then, I can help to save the lives of men and cattle, the feed and the manure, what better work can one do for his day and generation ? LOSSES OF CALVES BY ABORTION. I raise a hundred or more calves yearly. So great have been my losses that, like my neighbors, I have been inclined to "quit and buy my calves," but the price of a good calf — a good calf — is nearly equal to that of a yearling, and principally because the losses are so great. On the plains I am assured by competent judges that men lose on the big ranches one-half their calves, and one gentleman said: " They may say what they please, I know it to be so." Consider for a moment that the calf — the foetus — lying in the womb of its mother is constantly exposed to horn thrusts. All other injuries are provided against (save the toe of the milkman's boot), but the horn of the passing cow means death to the calf. If you will only just stop, stop and think on this for a moment, there right up under and forward of the udder, a little to the right, lies the foetus. For almost twenty-four hours the mother is in danger of a passing blow, and a very slight blow with the end of the horn is enough. The only wonder is that we do not loose all our calves. Don't talk to me about " its being catching," and " you must bury tho placenta," and "you must not yell or scare the brute," etc. All very well, but cows don't lose their calves without help. From a loss of twenty-five in one year with horns, I dropped to three the next year with no horns. Comment is not needed. The undertaking to keep 500 cattle over winter in our climate with horns in one herd is what can't be done without great loss. Dehorn them, and it can be done, and of all ages and sizes, too. How cattle do hate each other. How they do stand on their dignity. How utterly regardless they are of all but self. What a lesson, what a sermon they continually preach us on forbearance. 13 CHAPTER III. ORIGIN OF POLLED CATTLE. The study of this branch of the subject is obviously in part spec- ulative; but there is no reasonable doubt to question the fact that by a careful polling of our calves we should, in a very short time, have any breed of cattle polled, for this is undoubtedly true, that as like begets like, so any organ not provided -with full and direct arterial circulation is liable at any time to be not produced, and as horns have only capillary circulation, they are fit subjects for the illustration of this principle. So, too, in the case of geese kept in mountain ranges, which lose the webs of their feet and have feet without webbed toes, or as in case of careful breeding, as is shown in bull-dogs with tails bred to stubs. Those are parts, it will be seen, having the lowest circulation. Horns are especially liable to this rule, for in the older animal the periosteum or membrane around the bone-horn is not thicker than paper. Doubtless, too, careful breeding has given us the well-developed Galloway, and polled Angus and Norfolk polled cattle, while it is a well-known fact that some of the polled herds had horns not a hundred years since. As an instance of like producing like, the writer had, a few years since, among a thousand hogs, one Chester White sow that was cross- eyed. Thinking to try an experiment, he watched her litters of pigs, and found, finally, a boar pig and two sow pigs similarly marked. Care- ful inbreeding of them gave, in a few generations, a regular lot of cross-eyed pigs, until the experiment liked to have proved serious, her pigs being so cross-eyed that some of them, as one of my boys said, had to look seven ways for Sunday and all ways for their food. Or, like the Jersey stock once introduced into your herd, and you can trace the thirty-second part thereof in color and characteristics. We can dehorn our calves and get a Holstein or Short-horn breed of polled cattle in six crosses, but it will take sixteen crosses for the Hereford's, in my judgment. u CHAPTER IV. THE VETERINARY SIDE OF THE SUBJECT. " God put them horns there," says one, " and you have no busi- ness to remove them." " You are engaged in poor business trying to improve on nature." Just so — just so, my friends— just so; and God put that wart on the end of your nosf, and you — but I forbear — it's too personal. And now as to improving on nature — -why, that is just what we are all at. We trim our trees, pare our nails, remove nature's corns and ex- crescences of all kinds, my friend, including horns, just because we find it to be profitable to do so. We castrate and spay cattle, and ring the pigs' noses, and do a thousand things against nature that our judgment advises us to do. Is it not a little remarkable that none of the works on veterinary science, and none of the veterinary surgeons themselves, pretend to give, or do give any particular account of the anatomy of the bovine's head as related to the horns and the parts connected? Even the/ French writer, the great Cheveaux, in his comparative anatomy, throws little light on the question. None of the encyclopedias, save Britannica, tell us more than that there are different kinds of horns in different animals, and that the horns of the bovine are hollow. There is no doubt at all that the so-called disease, " Hollow Horn," is nothing more nor less than horns that have been chilled; that is to say, the horn is composed of four parts: the bone-horn, the periosteum or membrane around the bone-horn, the shell, and the matrix at the base of the shell.- These four parts constitute the make-up of the horn, and in dealing with the question of hollow horn as a disease, it must be borne in mind that all cattle horns are hollow. That is to say, in the calf the embryo horn is a button of cartilage. It is loose for several weeks; then it begins to connect with the frontal bone of the forehead. At a year old it begins to become vascular — 15 that is, porous — and at one year (and sometimes sooner) it develops a hollow at the base, and thence forward is always hollow. There is no " pith," and no such thing as " pith," and no marrow in or to a horn. There is no such thing as pith or core; it is "bone-horn." There is no feeling to either the skull or to the bone-horn, and there is no feeling to cartilage, of which bone is formed; there is no marrow inside the bone-horn, and there is no marrow inside any of the frontal bones of the head or in the " frontal sinuses " (a sinus is a bay or hollow). Now then, it will be seen at a glance that there can be no such disease as the " hollow horn." What is it, then? Why, simply thip : When a bovine gets chilled, it begins to freeze first up at the horn tips ; that thin membrane between the shell-horn and the bone-horn begins to chill first, and as the cold extends along down to the head the matrix also chills, and then when the brute begins to warm up there is, of course, an inflammation just as with a frozen toe when it thaws out. Now if you bore into that horn and give "vent" to that inflammation,' your hollow horn disease stops; but a better way is to cut off the tip of the horn a little way down and let the pus escape, and a much better way is to dehorn the animal. The Montana cattle men understand this, and they will tell a droopy horn brute early ; and they say, " take one that has not eaten anything for sometime and cut off the tip of the horns and let out the offen- sive matter, and he will go to eating at once." And they also say (for several of them have been to see me on this matter) that "unless you do give such a horn ' vent,' the animal will do nothing that whole season." Plenty of men from the plains have gone home from me after full explanation and instructions to '' put dehorning into practice the same time that we castrate our calves." This is what Dr. Law says: "I could wish that dehorning of calves might become as common as castration is now." What is to prevent? Nothing. Now, as will be seen, the only feeling the brute experiences in removing the horn is when either the periosteum or the matrix is disturbed, and in the next chapter is given a full and extended account of how dehorning should be done, and how to operate on all ages and conditions. 16 Among all the veterinarians not a man could be found to give any- rational explanation of this process. The nearest that came to it were Dr. R. J. Withers and Dr. Joseph Hughes, of the Chicago Veterinary College. The former had in his youth seen a few cases where ugly brutes, or brutes with one horn lost, had been operated upon. The latter had seen it practiced, when a boy, on cattle crossing the channel from Ireland to England, because if not done, cattle were very liable to do terrible damage with their horns en voyage. The doctor said in testifying that he had seen them ripped half way around the body. The writer met an old Scotchman who recollected that, in his youth, in Scotland and the North of Ireland, dehorning was practiced " to gentle the cattle," but an act of Parliament was passed prohibiting it (now happily done away with). Perhaps it ought to be stated here that the author has paid the full penalty for the privilege of writing this little book, by standing his trial for four days against all that vindictiveness and corporate influ- ence could do to convict him of being guilty of cruelty to animals; that he has fully vindicated the practice of dehorning, and also vin- dicated his own position in connection therewith; but there were years of ostracism, and that kind of crawling sensation one feels when ap- proaching a brute in the manner of many (mistaken) good people towards himself. There are many persons who have come and made the "amende honorable" by apologizing to the writer person- ally, and many others by letter. Consider for a moment the relation of the several parts of the bovine head. The top is composed of this frontal bone and various cross bones for strength, and down under- neath all is the parietal bone of the brain. Now, the suture, as it is called, runs crossways in the human skull, and in the horse skull, too, but in the cow it runs the whole length of the face, from top to bottom. This understood, explains away the false sympathy one feels when comparing dehorning with a cow whose horn is knocked off, for in the latter case the pain is not so much on the ugly bloody horn-bone that is left (although it looks as though it was very painful), but the pain is at the brain, because that blow which knocked off the shell-horn at the same time opened the suture 17 more or less, and congested the brain at the point where you aim to shoot a brute, and where both the bones are united. The blow tended to separate the brain along the suture, and hence the agony. Take an old cow skull and separate it up and down in front (there is a place to do it, and that is at the suture). Now recollect that when the brute lived, the parts were more or less soft, and a blow on the horn was awful, because it tended to divide the brain in the middle. To cut off a horn would not hurt one-hundredth part as much because you only divide the thin membrane. The following letter, written the writer after his trial and dis- charge, is here given with the remark that Dr. Cutts and the writer were the first to agree upon this question, although the doctor said frankly: "1 have changed my mind upon this matter after reflection." This, too, was the writer's position after long experience in dehorning, for he now knows that dehorning properly done is not very painful. Hon. H. H. Haapp: Dear Sir: In the suit of the State Humane Society against yourself for cruelty to animals in sawing off their horns, recently on trial in this city, the testimony of experts in behalf of the prosecution went to show that the opera- tion was one of great cruelty, inflicting severe pain upon the animal, entirely disproportionate to the benefits expected to be derived from it. If this is true, the case should have been prosecuted and an attempt made to put a stop to the practice. But the overwhelming weight of testimony on your side from farm- ers and others accustomed to the care of cattle, who had either seen the operation of dehorning or had performed it themselves, that the animals did not apparently suffer much pain at the time or afterward ; that they manifested no symptoms of shock, but partook of food and water immediately ; that in milch cows the secretion of milk was not in the slightest degree diminished or changed, goes very far to prove that the operation is not so severe as has been generally supposed, and that the testimony on the opposite side was given more as the result of preconceived opinions and .theories rather than from actual study and observation. It is quite possible that the nervous system of animals becomes less and less sensitive to pain in proportion as they descend to lower grades, but of that we can have no proof, except from the behavior of the animal itself. Assuming in this case that there is no difference in sensibility to pain, it becomes import- ant to consider the anatomical construction of the hoin, in relation to its supply of nerves and blood vessels. It may be stated as a rule, that while the nerves 18 that are sensitive to pain are more generally distributed over the surface of the body, they are distributed with increased supply to parts that undergo rapid waste and repair, and are diminished where these processes take place more slowly. The same statement may be made with regard to the blood vessels which supply the materials for nutrition. No physiologist will assert for one moment that there is any very considerable circulation of blood within the horn or any active process of waste and repair going on there to require such a circulation. It would be to contradict all the results of observation and experience. On the contrary, the circulation is extremely small and the changes are very slow, so that we might inferentially fiom these facts alone come to the conclusion that the nervous supply was very limited also. It does not change this conclusion if we assume that the function of nutrition, is controlled by the sympathetic nerve which is not a nerve of sensation; that would of itself render the supply of sensitive nerves still leag necessary or important. The horn of an animal is its weapon for attack or defense, subject to rude shocks and heavy strains and to occasional loss by violence. It would seem improbable from the very nature ot its functions that it should be endowed with a great degree of nervous sensibility, which would be a disadvantage rather than an advantage to it. No one can for a moment suppose that there is any susceptibility to pain in the outside shell of the horn. A blow upon it may, by jar or conduction, affect the more sensitive parts at its base; but il is itself as absolutely incap- able of sensation as is the hair, or the free border of the nails; belonging as it does to the same epidermic structures that contain neither nerve or blood vessels, consisting wholly of exuded or formed matter, that undergoes no further changes than to be cast off. The central part of the horn in young life consists entirely of cartilage which is separate and independent of the frontal bone. This becomes by age converted into true bone, by the same process that takes place in fcetal cartilage, viz.: the deposition in it of mineral matters, chiefly salts of lime. Neither cartilage or bone are sensitive tissues; that is, they are not supplied with sensitive nerves. They may be cut, or sawed, or gouged, both in health or disease, with very little pain, as every surgeon knows. The pain that is felt in certain cases of disease comes from the pressure of exuded matter involving nervous filaments in their periostial coverings, rather than from the substance of the bone itself, and so also of cartilage. There can be no part of the horn, therefore, above its base, that Is sensitive or painful in the operation of sawing it off, except a thin circular layer be- tween its outer shell and the inner bone. This layer is formed by the corium or true skin (its outer division forming the shell), united to the periostial cover- ing of the bone, and probably in no case exceeds one-eight of an inch in thick- 19 ness. Il is the only part of the horn supplied with nerves, and it is supplied from tlie same source that supplies the skin and muscles of the forehead and temples, viz.: from the supra orbital branch of the opthalmic nerve, which itself is a division of the fifth pair, wilh perhaps some terminal filaments of the facial nerve. Of course the division of this tract must cause some pain, but there is no reason to suppose that it is any greatei', if as great, as that caused by a section to the same extent of the same nerves in the skin of the fore- head. Tlie sensitive surface exposed in sawing off a horn three inches in diameter does not exceed one and one-eight square inches (3 x 3=9 x J^^IJ^) of a cross-cut section, that is always less painful than where the terminal ends of nerves are left exposed or inflamed, as in branding with hot irons, to say nothing of the much greater surfaca involved in the latter operation. No nerves can i each the interior of the horn from the nasal cavities for the reason that there is no communication between the two until after the age when the frontal sinus becomes developed and the apophysis, first of cartilage and then of bone thai forms the central horn, begins to atrophy to form these cavities. That button of cartilage in the calf that eventually forms the horn is entirely separate from the frontal bone, and only becomes joined to it by age. Its imperfect or arrested development gives origin to the breed of mulley cattle — cattle without horns. Now, the arrest of development in any special organ, so general as to be- come a race characteristic, is regarded among naturalists as proof that the part so arrested was neither highly organized, important, nor even necessary to the animal. The inference is unavoidable that the part suppressed could never have been highly endowed with nerves, or it never could have been suppressed. Nature does not make mistakes of this kind. We have said that the nerves of the horn come from the same source as that which supplies the skin of the forehead. There is no other source from which they can be derived. The sensibility of the horn, therefore, can not be greater than the sensibility of the forehead, but, on the other hand, it may be greatly below it, owing to the diminished supply of terminal nerves. On this point no proof c&n be offered, because, so far as I know, no actual demonstra- tion of nerves within the horn has ever been made; they are assumed to exist by analogy only. The skin is more freely supplied with nerves than any other part of the body, and it is the part most sensitive to pain, but even this varies in different situations, and Is by no means uniform. A surface denuded or inflamed is painful in proportion to its extent; but if the same surface is at once covered up and protected from the air, the pain becomes comparatively slight. It is not so much the violence, the laceration, the local injury, as its exposure to the 30 air afterwards Ihat renders it painful; and out of our knowledge of this fact has grown up the modern method of treating burns, scalds and similar injuries, by covering them with impervious coverings. J. B. Cutts, M. D. Qeneseo, 111, Jan. 31, 1886. Let me now repeat, for emphasis. The bovine has a suture in the skull bones from the nose to the top of the head, and a blow on the horn tends to divide one-half the head from the other, thus springing the parts over the brain, and causing congestion and consequent agony. Therefore, it is true that when a brute knocks off the horn, either entire or only the shell, the pain is more at the center of the head (the center of the suture) than on the sides or at the horn itself. Hence, in knocking off a horn the animal will frequently, in fact almost always, show great pain, sometimes fainting and falling, some- times (rarely) even dying. In dehorning no such scenes or conse- quences follow, because there is no pain at the center of the head, that is, at^the brain (direct). So we almost always see the dehorned animal turn and go to eating at once; see it directly chew the cud; see it perform all the functions of the body without the slightest un- easiness or indisposition, even to instances of copulation; and of thousands that the writer has dehorned he never saw one show subse- quent sickness, loss of appetite or other trouble in consequence of the operation. The saw the writer uses is a pointed tool, so made as to operate at the very place, to prevent bleeding or growth of horn afterwards. On this depends the whole operation. The gouo-e for calves works automatically, and it takes but a moment to make a mulley of any calf. By addi'essing the writer at Atkinson, III, both these tools will be furnished at a low price. 21 CHAPTER V. HOW TO DEHORN CATTLE. The accompanying illustrations, and the description of the differ- ent processes, need to be studied in connection with living subjects. In dehorning, as we have seen, the only pain inflicted in cutting off the horn is in dividing the periosteum, or thin membrane around the bone-horn. Xow, in young animals this membrane is more tender, and is thicker, too, than in older brutes. Hence it follows, and it is true as a general rule, the older the brute the less pain in operating, depend- ing upon the breed of the animal and the size of the horn. All Hereford cattle, as a rule, suifer more in dehorning than Shorthorns, for obvious reasons. They have bigger horns. There are cattle whose horns hang loose. Cut the skin, and the horn drops off. No more pain is inflicted on one whose horn stands firm, for the reason that this membrane, or periosteum is only an extension of the skin — noth- ing more. 1. To operate, then, let us begin with a calf. Open the gouge, and place it upon the embryo horn. You can feel it loose on the top of the frontal bone. Press down and gouge out this embryo with the gouge: that is all there is of the operation to the calf. One crack of the gouge, and you are done. 2. If the calf has developed the horn so that it is too large to use the gouge, resort must be had to the saw; and it is well to recollect that the embryo horn has but recently begun to grow onto or attach to the frontal bone. Now, we must reach the bottom of this embryo horn, or button, and we must therefore saw in a gouging way. Do not be afraid. You are two inches above the brain in a six months' calf, and in a six-year7old you are twice that distance. As you will note, the saw is made to gouge with. Cut well down. The hair is growing on the yearling's horn: perhaps, cut away below that. Use 22 your judgment. Try the horn. It is loose; it " wriggles." Well, cut away down where that wriggling takes place. It may take a little hair; no matter. The operation is most severe on a yearling, but I never fail, and you need not. You want a "job," and you do not want unsightly stubs after a few weeks. Pray recollect that for two years a brute's horns grow very fast, after that slower, and then come the annual rings. I prefer the saw for these operations, save only on calves. So, too, after a little, will you, and you will so use it that not a stub will be seen. On older cattle, particularly on bulls, and on some steers and cows, it is difficult to tell where the matrix is. Sometimes the ring of pulpy flesh lies partially outside the hair. In this case you must cut it off, that is all, or the horn will grow. In most cases, however, the matrix lies back of the edge of the hair. A little practice will enable you to tell where. Do not be afraid of a little blood in the case of big bulls with large horns. Go ahead with your job when your brute is secured, and you will find that the bleeding stops as soon as he is let loose. I may here say that the rapidity with which this operation is performed limits the time of healing very largely, provided the head is properly secured before starting.' Pig. 1 shows the rope used, with a ring attached. This is all that is necessary, — a half (or three-quarter) inch rope fifteen feet long. For big bulls I use a chute, or branding pen, not over two feet wide at the outlet; and I take the precaution to bind the side posts at top with a log chain. Then draw the bull's head around with the rope, and raise it up as high as possible, so as to prevent his lifting and straining. Put a post behind him, and also put one under him, forward of the penis, so as not to crush that important factor, and so as to prevent his majesty from lying down. All being now ready, and posts in front, of course, so that he can not move, saw away close to the hair, or close to the matrix, wherever that may be. Fear nothing. Be sure you are right and blaze away. Turn htmi loose when done. If the second horn bothers to get at, turn the head 34 around, and tie up again. The place for the ring is under the jaw, and not so far down on the nose, as to shut his wind off. This is no child's play: it is business. He must breathe, he must be held secure; and it can be done with care, and your man-killer rendered much more safe, and no harm done to his usefulness. Use a four-inch ring. For your herd of cows and steers, etc., use a lot of stanchions. (See post.) A little experience, and you will walk through a dozen stanchions in a very few minutes. Turn your cattle loose as fast as dehorned. There will be trouble if you do not ; they will bruise themselves badly. Frequently it becomes necessary to let down the head after one horn is cut off, and tie up again. Examine each horn before operat- ing, and shortly you will tell at first touch just where to cut. The writer has dehorned cows very near calving, and without trouble or loss. The whole secret lies in proper stanchions, and in raising the head away up so that, when the brute falls, she hangs by the neck, and falls on the hip. Don't fear about her neck. Did you ever pull a brute out of the ditch? Well, did you succeed in drawing off her head? No, I guess not either. That is my plan; and how bad results can follow is not apparent. In dehorning in fly time, daub the hair, not the sore, with a little pine tar, and use very little cotton and tar, or carbolic acid diluted, to put into the opening (the frontal sinus). If maggots appear, poke them out with a pine stick, and use a little (not too much) cotton moistened with turpentine. A lot of pitch pine is best of all. Dehorn at any time of the year, save in fly time, is a good general rule. The writer pays little attention to his own rule, defying flies as well as zero. He dehorped a hundred steers once with the mer- cury at fifteen below zero, and no bad effects followed. Fig. 2 shows a rope ^nd a four-inch ring, as it is put onto the brute. Put the rope over the brute's neck. Take hold of the ring below, and double the rope through the ring, and now draw the loop over the nose; throw the rope up and over the top of the stan- chion, a little to one side. Have your attendants raise the head, as before directed, and draw up on the rope tight. The head is now up 25 and to one side. Put the rope through the ring again and bind around the bar. Have one attendant hold the rope and you saw away. If you can reach the second horn, all right; if not, let down the head and turn it, proceeding as before directed. I repeat for emphasis. It has been, and doubtless will be charged again, that this is a move in the interest of polled cattle. The writer is of the opinion that our polled cattle are able to take care of themselves; and he is also of opinion that we can never afford to do away with our Shorthorn, Hereford, or Holstein breeds of cattle. If his theory is right, we may in a few generations have all of these breeds minus the horns. There are men already at this very thing among the Holstein breeders, for there is a demand for a dairy cow without horns. The question is asked if the lack of horns affects the price of steers or fat cattle on the great markets. Put on plenty of flesh and your mulley steers will not go begging for buyers. Several times already parties who have bought cattle of the writer and fattened them have been heard to say: " We never saw cattle take on flesh as they did;" and in one instance on the same day my cattle, of a simi- lar description, brought 55 cents per hundred more than a similar kind with horns, for they were fatter — all on grass. The testimony of C. T. Powell, Esq., of Osco, in the trial referred to, was that he found my dehorned cattle in April in better condition on hay alone than his own cattle were on all the timothy hay they could eat, and some corn every day. There is no mistaking the point, as one year's experience will satisfy the most incredulous person. At the trial mentioned, it was amusing to hear the varied experience of different men. Our Bill Arnett swore that during the then prevail- ing blizzard he had put his herd of Shorthorn cattle, numbering seventy-five, into a large barn, and that in the morning he found all but eight outside, and his barn half torn down. That he believed dehorning to be a blessing and a humanity, and, as soon as the trial was over he would (and he did) dehorn his whole herd. Messrs. Gilbert and Taber, who with several others took up their residence at Geneseo, " to see this thing through," testified 36 in a similar strain. Mr. T. dehorned his entire herd of one hun- dred Holsteins. Jno. L. Jennings froze his face in coming eighteen miles to testify, and he brought down the house describing his de- horning a three-year-old heifer that came for him: " She made a dive at me, and I put out my hand to save myself, and caught her by the horn, and she went right along and left the horn in my hand." (He is nearly seven feet tall, and strong in proportion.) E. C. Gilbert testified that, in his opinion, the pain, as compared with that in castration, was " as a drop of water to a bucketful." Drs. Hughes and Withers, and also Drs. McKillop and Case well, tes- tified that, in our climate, dehorning is a mercy. The last named is the veterinary surgeon of the State. The first two are of the veter- inary college, at Chicago, while Dr. McKillop enjoys a big veterin- ary practice on Wabash Avenue, in Chicago. The worst possible case that the writer can conceive of occurred in his experience at LaFayette, Ind. Mr. Heath of that city, a banker and influential citizen, invited the writer to go down to his place and operate on a lot of thoroughbred and grade" Hereford bulls, — all stabled and having little or no exercise, and one of them had horns of nearly five inches diameter at the place of cutting. There was no trouble in the dehorning. In conclusion, the writer desires to express his thanks to so many good men who have been willing to take his word, and test this thing on the strength of his word alone. He trusts and believes that no bad results will follow. It is an especial matter of pride to recom- mend, to the readers of this book, the Chicago Veterinary Col- lege and the professors above named, and also Dr. Baker, who is a convert to dehorning by force of circumstances, and who does not, like some we know of, set up his dictum against the world. Young men and their associates, some of them, are leaving the farm in winter, and spending three or four months at this school. Gro and do likewise; you will never regret it. We need to post our boys. We need good veterinary surgeons. The days of the " hoss doctor " ought to end soon. A fair knowledge of veterinary science may be obtained in two winters, and it is useful on the farm. Try it. 27 CHAPTER VI. CASTRATION OF BULLS. The usual mode of castration, by cutting off the bottom of the scrotum (bag) is open to the objection that the animal does not show up as well when fat. There is no need to cut off the scrotum at all. My method is this: On calves. — Turn the calf on his back. Let a couple of attendants hold his legs, cut the testicle open on the front side (side towards the head). This needs one cut to each seed. The entire testicle should be cut from top to bottom. I use a small, sharp knife and put the point at place of beginning, and cut clear down at one gash. Then pinch out the substance of the testicle, return the cord and muscle to their place, and the operation is done. The first cut should divide the muscle and epididymis above the seed, and, if it does not do so, why, use the knife again, and cut them down length- wise. Do not cut them off. The object is to prevent severing cord and muscle, to be returned up into the body, and there to bleed and produce death by internal hemorrhage, as sometimes results from severing cord and muscle. Put larger bulls into a chute, and put up a bar behind to avoid kicking. Grasp the scrotum with the left hand ; turn the front side around to you; drive your knife into the top of the scrotum, and at one gash cut clear down to the bottom, and away clear through the seed; and if the epididymis and muscle are not cut, proceed to cut them lengthwise, that is down, but not off. The object is, as stated, to avoid internal hemorrhage. Peritoneal inflammation often occurs with abrasion of the cord and muscle. The writer has never known trouble to follow this mode, save in a single instance; and he is inclined to charge that to lack of exer- cise before and after castration, and to drawing the cord too much during the operation. Returning from the operation last named, and 38 hearing of the trouble, he took twelve yearlings of his own and tried part each way, with less inflammation in his new mode, as, it would seem, might have been expected. " Won't they be proud?" says one. I think not, for the epididymis is severed — I give the idea for what it is worth. It would certainly seem that this mode avoids all possible danger of internal hemorrhage. Frequently older bulls show healing by " first intention." To prevent this, and subsequent danger from pus, I put in a small string of tow cord to keep a vent open. 29 CHAPTER VII. SHEDS AND WATER. I do wish I could make my readers all feel and know how easy it is to provide warm, tight sheds, boarded all around, and warm water inside for the cattle that are dehorned. You are often bothered about getting your cattle through the winter, and you sometimes meet with loss. There are sheds; but they " won't go into them." They will, though, if they all lose their horns. Now, then, let us suppose that you have 100 cattle to winter. Well, a shed 30x80 is ample for all, and a big water-tank beside. Now find a steep hillside, say a slope of one foot in five. Set eight- foot posts one foot into the ground, and eight feet apart each way; nail fence boards at the top on each side of all the posts to lay the roof boards on. The slope of the hill makes the slope of the roof. Board up all around the outside, leaving two eight-foot openings on the south. Double board the ends on each side of the posts, and fill in the space with dry cow manure. Do same with north side. A single course of boards is enough on the south side. Lay a course of boards for the roof, and batten the cracks. Of course, on the hill-top is a wind- mill built to fill that tank. Level the tank, and run a small pipe up through the upper side of hill for a little vent under the tank; put on bottom of your tank a patch of sheet iron, say three feet square. Excavate so as to set a lamp under. Procure one of those small kerosene stoves of Adams, Westlake & Co., Chicago; cost, $1.50. You will have warm water at a cost of 10 cents per day. Your cattle will keep fat on an ordinary winter's supply of hay, and you will all say, " It saves one-quarter the hay, and all our cattle occupy the shed;" what is more, that shed is self-cleaning, and the hillside is no objection. 30 IN CONCLUSION. I wish to add, furthermore, that, if the dehorning of thousands of cattle by myself, or by others whom I have taught, with the uniform result of no injury, no loss of appetite, no loss of milk, but, on the contrary, with the verdict of more gentle, more quiet, more tractable, feed better, fat better, handle better; if this, as a general verdict, added to scores upon scores of personal allegations made by our very best farmers and cattle men during the recent spring months, " that I have tried it on a few of the bosses, and I will never winter another horn," — if all these things go to establish and justify a practice, then it is not too much to presume that very soon, all over this land, our dairymen, our cattle feeders and our stock growers will put dehorning into general pratice, as my neighbors of two or three counties around me are now doing or have recently done. The experiments that have been tried in connection with dehorning would be justified only on the basis of the great losses we suffer and have suffered; but they are no longer necessary, for I have demonstrated this. 1st. There is a point right at the matrix where the operation can be performed safely, and any person of common intelligence can find the matrix by careful feeling at the base of the horn. 3nd. To cut a horn off at the middle or an inch or more above the base will result in terrible bleeding. 3rd. To cut below the matrix will result similarly, and produce a very sore head. 4th. To cut at the matrix is to avoid all trouble and all danger. This is my discovery. This was my secret, and this, in view of all the facts herein presented, is warrant enough to demand the atten- tion of every cattle man in the country. I have produced a saw that is perfectly adapted to the operation; a gouge that dehorns calves in an instant; and a cattle tag that must 31 supersede all branding everywhere; and in this last-named invention I claim to save every branded animal ten times the pain inflicted by dehorning. I can not lay down the pen in connection with this hastily writ- ten pamphlet, without expressing my sense of obligation to the ag- ricultural press of the land, which have, so far as I know, without exception, given the subject matter under consideration a fair hear- ing, and, in most instances, an unqualified approval. There may be Scribes and Pharisees among these journals, but they are of the quiet kind, who are, perchance, waiting until they are sure of a ma- jority vote. The secular press also, so far as 1 know, voice in their agricultural departments an echo of the same approval. When such papers as the Chicago press (not to mention names) join in accord- ing a modicum of praise to an innovation so startling in its appoint- ments, and its effects upon ihe brute creation, it becomes such as the writer to acknowledge his personal obligations, and ask a charitable extension of good will until the body of our farmers shall determine upon the final measure of usefulness, by a season of common experi- ence in dehorning. The coming fall and winter will test the matter in thousands of places where farmers are heard to declare, " we will never winter another horn." I know where the danger lies in adopting this prac- tice. Men will too readily jump at conclusions, and dehorn cattle so that stub horns will soon appear. J have tried to avoid this danger by carefully pointing out the modus operandi of dehorning. I could fill many pages with letters on this point. I notice that a Scotch- man boasts in the papers of having used shears and clipped off twenty- five horns in thirty minutes, and I add that in less than a year they all needed clipping again. This trouble can be avoided if you will. There is less bleeding in dehorning right, and no stubs will follow. [the end.]