By Beef Cattle Research Council

Canada’s three western provinces introduced “horn taxes” to encourage dehorning in the late 1930’s, and they are still being collected in Saskatchewan and B.C. More recently, the Canadian beef industry developed the Quality Starts Here program to encourage improved standards for food safety and quality. One best management practice recommendation is to dehorn all calves in an effective, humane manner prior to three months of age. These efforts have helped reduce the number of horned cattle in Canada.

The 1995 Canadian Beef Quality Audit reported that 32% of cattle entering Canadian packing plants had horns longer than 5cm. This dropped to 16% in Canada’s 1998-99 audit. Audits in the US found that the incidence of horned cattle fell from 31% to 21% between 1991 and 2005.

What Do Horns Cost?

Packing sector: Horns were once found to be responsible for 50% of carcass bruising. This suggests that each horned animal cost an average of $5.09 in bruising related trim in the previous Canadian beef quality audits. Packers also have to pay someone to cut horns off the carcass so that the hide can be pulled over the head. In previous Canadian quality audits, this cost an average of 16 cents per horned animal. If the sinus exposed by dehorning gets contaminated at the plant, the whole skull will be condemned. In the US, approximately 9% of head condemnations were due to contamination. Applying this to the Canadian data indicates that head condemnations due to horns cost an average of 6 cents per horned animal. These costs add up to $5.31 per horned animal slaughtered. In all likelihood, this is worked into the price of fed cattle and already factored in to the price paid for horned calves.

Feedlot sector: Horned cattle are more likely to injure people, themselves and other cattle, and need more space at the bunk and in the truck. Dehorning takes time, is stressful, may result in infection, and can reduce growth rate and feed efficiency.

Treatment and labor costs associated with dehorning feedlot cattle are between $5 and $10 per head, so cattle are rarely dehorned in the feedlot. Some backgrounding lots will dehorn calves with large horns, particularly if the animal is destined for grass. But horned calves are often discounted because horns can break off during handling, and horned cattle still require more bunk space and more room in the truck. These discounts vary with the competition for calves (tight calf supply = smaller discount), but average around 2 cents per pound ($10 on a 500 pound calf) if a large proportion of calves in the group are horned. Assuming this discount includes the $5.31 cost faced by the packer, the feedlots share of the discount is likely in the neighborhood of $4.69 per horned calf.

Horned cattle deductions: “Horn taxes” can add an additional $2 (Saskatchewan) to $10 (B.C.) per head. These funds do not offset discounts from the packer or feedlot; they’re an additional charge. This brings the total discount faced by producers selling horned calves to $12 to $20 per head in those provinces.

Cow-calf sector: Horned cows may be better at discouraging wolves and other predators than polled or dehorned cows, but not always. Cattle without horns are less likely to hurt each other or the employees, though. Australian information suggests that the labor cost of dehorning calves is approximately $0.25. Even if it’s ten times that amount, $2.50 per head is considerably cheaper than the discounts imposed through market signals and horn taxes.

Dehorning Considerations

Producers are strongly advised to dehorn calves as early as possible for two reasons. Firstly, the procedure is less invasive in newborn calves, so growth performance is not impacted as much. Secondly, common sense and science both say that removing an established horn from an older animal is much more painful than removing the unattached horn bud from calves. In some countries, older calves can only be dehorned by a veterinarian using anesthetic or anti-inflammatory drugs. The problem is that most of these injectable drugs wear off after a few hours, while the post-operative pain lasts much longer than this. So these drugs may make dehorning easier for the operator (the animal likely struggles less if it doesn’t hurt as much), but might only delay the pain for the animal. The added cost and lack of long-term pain relief have limited the use of these drugs. In-feed anti-inflammatories may provide more effective and longer-term pain relief, but none of these products have received regulatory approval in Canada.

The other way to dehorn cattle is to use polled genetics. A perfectly reliable DNA test for the horned / polled gene has not been developed yet, but most breeds do have polled bloodlines. A pair of Canadian studies published in 1996 and 1998 found miniscule difference in backfat depth between horned and pulled bulls, but no differences in birth, weaning, or yearling weight, pre or post-weaning growth rate, scrotal circumference, carcass weight, marbling score, ribeye area or lean meat yield. This has not entirely stopped the passionate debate about pendulous sheaths and other relative merits of horned vs. polled cattle in coffee shops around the world.

The current Canadian Beef Quality Audit underway at Alberta and Ontario packing plants in 2010-11 will update industry statistics and costs due to horns and other carcass quality defects.

The Beef Research Cluster is funded by the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to advance research and technology transfer supporting the Canadian beef industry’s vision to be recognized as a preferred supplier of healthy, high quality beef, cattle and genetics.