DEHORNING, SPAYING, AND CASTRATING CATTLE 383 



upon it. Even humane societies, in some instances, lent 

 their influence in opposing it. It does seem strange that 

 such opposition should come from those who not only 

 tolerated but commended the practices of spaying and 

 castrating, which would seem to involve quite as much 

 suffering as dehorning. 



Why cattle are dehorned. — The principal reason, of 

 course, why cattle are dehorned is to prevent them from 

 injuring one another through goring. The desire to 

 lessen such injury before dehorning became general was 

 shown in sawing off a part of the horn in some instances 

 and by putting brass knobs on the tips of the horn in 

 others. The injury inflicted by cattle on one another 

 through goring, especially when feeding together in 

 sheds, yards, or paddocks, has been serious in some 

 instances, and such injury has followed the animals dur- 

 ing shipment to the place of slaughter. In the nature 

 of things, animals in advanced pregnancy are peculiarly 

 liable to harm from the goring of other animals. The 

 instances of abortion that may be traced to this cause 

 are numerous. In the case of males, the retention of 

 horns adds much to the danger incurred in handling 

 them. 



It would be stating the question too strongly to 

 say that fattening animals while running loose in shed, 

 yard, or feed lot possessed of horns cannot be fattened 

 with success and profit, but the degree of the success 

 and the amount of profit will certainly be materially less 

 when the animals are in possession of their horns. 



The loss from animals goring one another is not to 

 be measured by the injury they sustain from goring that 

 is apparent arid tangible, nor by the interference of the 

 stronger with the weaker when taking food in the feed 

 lot, but it is also to be measured by the hindrance to 

 growth and the less degree of thrift that follows the 

 abuse which at all times horned animals are liable to 

 inflict on one another. Too much, however, must not 



