Horned or Dehorned How Do You Like Your Goats?

I am sure that there is going to be people fall on both sides of this and that is fine since this is just my opinion and how we choose to do things on our homestead.

Do you dehorn your goats or buy goats that have already been disbudded? We have a few nannies that are naturally polled and they produce babies that are naturally dehorned already. I even got a nice looking male this year that will be hornless. I am ok with hornless nannies but I don't usually like my males without horns but not much you can do about a naturally polled animal. Hornless males get bullied more by my nannies and also are always being challenged by younger males since they don't recognize the herd hierarchy compared to our older males that have a nice set of horns won't hardly ever get challenged. I have not found any benefit to disbudding a goat and would not buy one or disbud any of my own personally.

The nanny and young male here are both naturally polled. He will be a nice big male like his sire but he will also be challenged at every turn.

This nanny is polled and produces polled babies also.

One reason I don't dehorn is you are taking away their natural defense. When my big males lower their head and stare down an intruder in their area usually the intruder backs off. Even some of our larger hogs or local dogs that have managed to get in the area will usually back off. A 200 lb male goat can crush a dog or coyote with a good hit and when two of our dominate males square off it is something off the nature channel.

Another reason to not dehorn a baby goat is you are taking a hot iron and burning off the horns which can have physical and emotional damage to the animal if not done properly and even then you need to watch for infections. Mending the relationship with the baby goat can be harder then mending the wounds. Even though our livestock are for meat production or for sale we prefer to have them all treated and respond like pets since rounding up livestock that has never been handled or does not respond well to you is a lot bigger job then ones that walk right up wanting your attention.

The biggest reason I prefer to have horns on my goats is the ease of handling them. Keeping a harness on a hornless goat can be a challenge and if they don't want to cooperate when being hooved. I would compare it to riding a bike. Much easier to ride a bike with handle bars then one without. This males handlebars made it very easy to hold or handle him when moving or hoofing.

So my opinion is naturally polled is ok with me since what are you going to do about nature but other then that we leave them the way they are. I do have a red angus naturally polled bull that I enjoy but it is not like you would be able to hold him or walk him with his horn anyways so really not a big pro or con their since a bull won't have much problems with predators either.

What are your opinions on dehorning your livestock and have you found and benefit to it?