With calving season getting underway, it’s time to start thinking about one of the key jobs for your spring calendar: disbudding. While it may not be everyone’s favourite task, doing it early and doing it well makes all the difference for calf welfare and long-term management.
Removing the buds while calves are between 2-6 weeks old means they won’t grow sharp horns as an adult, helping prevent injuries to herdmates and handlers. It’s much easier on the calf getting them done young and means you don’t have to worry about it later down the track.
We’ll happily pop out to your farm a couple of times as different groups of calves reach the right age.
Here at VetSouth, we’re proud to recommend ‘gold standard’ disbudding. This includes sedation and a local anaesthetic, followed by Metacam (meloxicam) for ongoing pain relief after the procedure. This combination doesn’t just make the process easier, it significantly improves calf wellbeing and recovery.
Research shows that while local anaesthetic effectively blocks the immediate pain of disbudding, inflammation and discomfort continue once it wears off. This is where the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), Metacam, comes in.
NSAID use significantly reduces pain-related behavioural changes following disbudding, with calves showing less head shaking, ear flicking and head rubbing. It’s also proven to increase feed intake post-disbudding and improve growth rates in the weeks afterward, compared with calves that receive local anaesthetic alone.
A little extra pain relief goes a long way towards producing happier calves that recover more quickly!
While we’ve got your calves sedated, it’s the perfect opportunity to do a few other jobs. We can administer Covexin 10 (a 10-in-1 clostridial vaccine) at the time of disbudding, giving calves excellent early protection against clostridial diseases and helping them get off to the best possible start. It’s also an ideal time for tagging, DNA sampling, and BVD testing, reducing the number of times calves have to be handled. Ticking multiple jobs off the spring to-do list at once is great!
Think about what standard of care you’ll give your calves this season – with gold standard disbudding, you’re investing in better welfare, healthier calves, and a stronger foundation for the future.
Call our Farm Services teams for help tailoring a disbudding plan to suit your needs this season, and book your sessions now.
