Department of Veterinary Surgery and Radiology, College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, Anand-388 001 (Gujarat)
Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University, Bidar-585 401 (Karnataka)
Eighteen clinically healthy crossbred calves of either sex, aged between 04 and 12 weeks, were randomly allotted to three groups of six each. Dehorning was performed either by electrocautery (group-I) or cryofreezing using liquid nitrogen (group-II), whereas, rest of the six calves acted as control (group-Ill). The animals exhibited behavioural changes, viz, head shaking, ear flicking and leg striking, especially after 2 hours of electrocautery dehorning. These behavioural changes were practically absent in the animals under cryosurgical dehorning as well as in the control group even after 2 hours. The concentration of plasma cortisol increased (P<0.05) following electrocautery dehorning at 5 min (29.26±8.03 ng/mL), but not after cryosurgical dehorning. The cryosurgical dehorning was simple, easy to perform and safe to animal as well as surgeon. The post-cryosurgical dehorning status was comparatively less painful in crossbred calves.
