1897 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
4i 5 
LIVE STOCK MATTERS. 
(CONTINUED.) 
I know of no information available 
in the way of facts, which would show 
that dishorning in any way injures the 
prepotency of the male, or his ability to 
transmit his desirable qualities from his 
ancestors to his offspring. Further¬ 
more, I take very little stock in this 
notion. I think the greatest advocates 
of the idea are those who have had little 
or no experience in the dishorning busi¬ 
ness. I do not consider that dishorning 
destroys the ambition of the male. 
Several years ago, I had the horns of a 
Jersey bull sawed off, and I did not see 
afterwards that it in any way injured 
his aggressiveness. It destroyed his 
ability to gore, but if help had not come 
at one time, after being dishorned, he 
certainly would have killed the man 
who had charge of him. Of course, the 
greatest per cent of dishorning has been 
done on beef cattle in the West, and I 
see very few dairy herds in this country 
that are dishorned. I take no stock in 
the quotation which you give from 
Hoard’s Dairyman. You might just as 
well say that the children of a man who 
has had his skull trepanned are of in¬ 
ferior prepotency to their father, as to 
say that the offspring of a bull are lack¬ 
ing in the finer qualities of that animal, 
simply because he has his horns sawed 
off. c. s PLUMB. 
Indiana Experiment Station. 
The claim made by some, that dis¬ 
horning a bull weakens his powers of 
prepotency, I believe to be yet only a 
theory, which has not been proved or 
disproved by sufficient experience and 
observation. Our experience is limited 
to one case. Our first Guernsey bull be¬ 
came an expert in the use of his horns. 
For our own safety, we had him dis¬ 
horned. This tamed him for a while, as 
he found his weapons of warfare were 
gone ; but his bullish nature and vigor 
seemed unabated. His get, after this, 
while remaining with our herd, were 
mostly males ; from these, we received 
good reports. That was the only pure¬ 
bred dairy animal we ever dishorned. 
While we do not think horns are of much 
advantage, we prefer to breed them 
small and leave them on. Breeders of 
choice dairy stock in this section do not 
dishorn, fearing that the theory may be 
a fact, and also when the stock is 
brought into the show ring, the horns 
are considered necessary in helping to 
form a correct estimate of the animal. 
So far as I have observed, the hornless 
breeds of cattle are in no wise inferior 
in prepotency and vigor to the horned 
breeds. In the absence of horns, they 
become expert with their heels and 
other parts in defensive and offensive 
warfare. Of course, this does not prove 
that an animal with horns is not injured 
in their removal. geo. c. hill. 
Wisconsin. 
The question is almost necessarily 
largely one of opinion, and the most 
that can be said on either side is mere 
assertion. It is practically impossible to 
prove by actual demonstration whether 
his prepotency is injured or not, because 
if he were first tested as a sire before re¬ 
moving the horns, there would not be 
time again to test his prepotency after 
dishorning before he would become aged 
and almost necessarily a different animal 
than before. 
The discussion will have to turn upon 
the reasons for or against, whichever as¬ 
sertion may be made. It is said that it 
is a serious mutilation of a part near the 
brain, which is the seat of nervous 
power and force. This seems to me more 
apparent than real. The horn is not in¬ 
timately connected with the nerve cen¬ 
ters, and its removal represents a far less 
invasion of the animal economy than is 
the amputation of -a limb, or even the 
extraction of a tooth. Indeed, there is 
little evidence to lead me to suppose 
that the process of dishorning results in 
any disturbance of the nerve centers. 
There is some local pain, of course, for 
both the skin and the core are supplied 
with a local plexus of nerves, but they 
are all terminal. If it were possible to 
think of any physiological disturbance 
sufficient to alter the constitution of the 
animal, or if the practice of dishorning 
resulted in serious inconvenience to the 
individual, I might be led to consider it 
disadvantageous to the breeder; but 
there seems to be no evidence of either, 
hence it seems to me as one of the most 
humane and one of the safest operations 
that can be performed upon animals. It 
is a well-known fact that almost all 
feeders agree in saying that dishorned 
animals are not only more quiet, but 
are better feeders than before, and to 
the student of physiology, regular feed¬ 
ing habits are good evidence of normal 
conditions. e. davenport. 
Illinois Experiment Station. 
The thought of the writer, evidently, 
is that it is not the absence of horns, 
but the “mutilation”, probably meaning 
thereby the pain and wound that re¬ 
sult from the operation. Of course, it 
is clear that bulls naturally without 
horns possess as much prepotency as 
bulls with horns, as shown by.the his¬ 
tories of the polled breeds. So the 
problem is : Is the act of dishorning or 
the wound resulting therefrom, in any 
way injurious to the animal ? We 
should remember that the base of the 
horn is not in immediate contact with 
the bony covering of the brain, but is 
separated therefrom by the frontal sinus 
—an air-space which any one can see by 
opening the head of a slaughtered beef, 
which removes the seat of operation in 
dishorning from two to three inches 
from the brain itself. When the opera¬ 
tion is properly performed, the disturb¬ 
ance is purely local, and in the rare 
cases in which complications occur, they 
are usually confined to the air-spaces 
and passages of the head, and do not 
reach the brain. I have never known 
brain disturbance of any sort to follow 
the operation of dishorning, and if there 
be danger of such a disturbance, it is 
greatest immediately after the opera¬ 
tion, and would, probably, be fatal. 
Dishorning does not seem to interfere 
with the memory or the intelligence of 
an animal in the least degree, showing 
that the activity of the brain is not 
interfered with, and I do not believe 
that the operation can have any influ¬ 
ence whatever upon the prepotency of a 
bull. The operation has been performed 
upon such vast numbers of animals dur¬ 
ing the last few years, that its injurious 
effects could not fail to be very prom - 
inent at this time if they occurred 
8>t 8.11. LEONARD PEARSON. 
Pennsylvania State Veterinarian. 
The horns are grown from the skin 
much as the nails on our hands, or the 
toe nails and dewclaws of the animal. In 
time, they become attached to the 
frontal bone, but should not be consid¬ 
ered an essential part of it. The horns 
are weapons originally intended for de¬ 
fence more than offense, as they have 
come to be used in numerous instances 
Since domestication has so completely 
removed the necessity for defending self 
or the common herd, they are useless 
except as ornaments and should be bred 
off. We do not particularly object to 
them if the wearer does not insist on 
using them on all, or any, occasions. 
We doubt its having very much, or any, 
effect on the vigor of a bull in the sense 
of reducing the natural endowment, to 
remove the horns. We have yet to see 
the first evidence to support such a 
claim, while there is a considerable 
accumulation of evidence from those 
who have dishorned bulls, to show that 
they are just as good, more docile and 
pleasanter to handle, while it may be 
that, if we were to advance a step 
further and assert that, by dishorning, 
and thus quieting a bull inclined to 
fight and waste energy that should be 
otherwise employed, it might result in 
a decided gain in his ability to repro¬ 
duce in his progeny those good qualities 
handed down to him, but obscured by 
his vice of fighting. His inheritance 
would thus be intensified by removing 
these weapons, the possession of which 
leads to misuse of power and, thereby, 
loss of natural ability to stamp the best 
qualities on offspring. One instance of 
a dishorned bull is prominently before 
me. In March, 1895, I cut off the horns 
of Jersey King No. 2. He was beginning 
to show a disposition to stand out against 
his keeper. The disposition to rule was 
curbed, but not destroyed. This bull is 
now, after two years, as active and 
alert as a yearling. No one could, for 
an instant, suppose him in the least in¬ 
jured by dishorning. But may we not 
suppose, with some show of correctness, 
that some of the energy which would, 
no doubt, have been worked off in fights 
with keeper, or posts, may have been 
concentrated in offspring, and that the 
later calves from this bull are better 
than they could have been had he been 
kept with horns ? I would like to hear 
from others on this point for dishorning 
a vicious bull. frank e emery. 
North Carolina Exp. Station. 
As far as my observation goes in using 
dishorned bulls, I have not been able to 
notice any difference in reference to 
their prepotency. I have had the op¬ 
portunity of noticing it if such an effect 
would result from this operation. How¬ 
ever, the matter of prepotency in a sire 
is an unlimited field for speculation, and 
I am not prepared to say anything de¬ 
cided in regard to it, for in such a mat 
ter, as soon as one weaves a fine-spun 
theory it is almost impossible to keep 
from getting tangled in its meshes. It 
seemed to me that there might be some¬ 
thing in the theory in so far as it would 
perhaps affect the vigor of a bull. I 
have grown by observation to be a thor¬ 
ough believer in the desirability of hav¬ 
ing each of the sexes possess in the 
greatest degree those characteristics 
that are peculiar to each. All varieties 
of animals have certain peculiarities 
which are distinctly sex characteristics, 
and as an evidence of breeding qualities 
I do not know of any feature that will 
compare with these as evidence. In the 
dairy bull the possession of a strong 
horn, a high, thick crest and overflowing 
vigor, are the chief evidences of mascu¬ 
linity. As far as my observation goes 
the bull that is thoroughly masculine is 
invariably prepotent, and the reverse 
has also been the result of such observa¬ 
tions as I have been able to make, 
though I do not believe that the latter 
is so often observable as the former. If 
dishorning lessens that vigor which a 
bull should have to be impressive as a 
dairy sire, then I should expect his pre¬ 
potency to be somewhat affected by the 
operation. But in my experience, while 
dishorning has proven a safeguard 
against the bull doing any injury, it has 
not in those cases that have come under 
my observation affected the inherent 
vigor possessed before the operation was 
performed. john a. craig. 
University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. 
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