280 DR. LEGEAR'S STOCK BOOK. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

 OPERATIONS. 



DEHORNING. 



This is an operation by which, cattle are deprived of their 

 horns. It has received a great deal of controversy through the 

 .stock and farm papers and veterinary journals as to the advisa- 

 bility and cruelty of the operation; some claiming it to be very 

 cruel and unnecessary; while others assert that it is not cruel, 

 but a humane act, to deprive cattle of their fierce and dangerous 

 weapons horns. We claim the operation is not cruelty to ani- 

 mals. Cruelty to animals is denned as the infliction of unneces- 

 sary pain. Of course it is more or less painful to the animal, but 

 not more so than the operation of castration or branding, to 

 which we regularly subject animals. The pain of a few minutes 

 -during which the operation is performed is nothing to be com- 

 pared to the severe and lasting torture inflicted as a matter of 

 every day occurrence, by animals upon each other, when left to 

 wear in confinement their weapons of offense, which, although 

 doubtless of utility in a wild state, are in a state of domesticity 

 a menace to their companions and a dangerous encumbrance to 

 themselves. How cruel it looks to see a bunch of long-horned 

 steers, shut up in the feeding pens, in the stock yards, or worse 

 still, in cars for shipment. There are always some restless, 

 vicious ones goring the quieter ones with their long, sharp 

 horns, and causing a commotion all the time among them. Still 

 another plea in favor of dehorning is for the safety and protec- 

 tion of mankind. Often do we read of men, women and children 

 being gored to death by the sharp horns of vicious bulls. Cows 

 and steers are dehorned chiefly to protect them from each other, 



