Chipped and Peeling Goat Horns: Treatment, Causes, and More

When I started breeding miniature goats for the pet market, I thought I’d covered everything in my research: what to feed them, disease, vaccinations, and more. So it surprised me when I didn’t have an answer the first day I noticed my prize ram had developed chipped and peeling horns. 

It just didn’t make sense to me. My goat was glossy, shiny, and fat as butter, so why were his horns chipping and flaking? Seeing his horns all broken and ugly wasn’t a pleasant sight. I had to get this problem sorted as soon as possible as I had a photo shoot coming up with my little Billy so I could market his future offspring. Luckily, my vet had the answers I needed. 

Why do goat horns peel, chip, and flake? There are many reasons that goat horns may become damaged, chip, peel, or flake. Goats may have a mineral or protein deficiency, creating weak horns. When a goat is injured, their horn may be damaged, and goats play rough, cracking each other’s horns. Some horn flaking is expected when a goat is young, and their horns are still growing.  

5 Reasons Goat Horns Flake, Chip, and Peel

My vet ran me through a couple of the reasons why goat horns could get damaged to see if any of these may have been responsible for my little Billy’s chipped and peeling horns. 

1. Improper Nutrition 

Goats may be on the wrong diet or have an overabundance of calcium, making horns and bones brittle. They can have a calcium deficiency, making goat horns weak and easy to break. Goats, like human children, may also be affected by poor groundwater, which can cause deficient bone growth if there is heavy-metal poisoning. Genetic factors may also cause poor horn growth.  

2. Mineral Deficiency 

When goats lack the right minerals, it’s vital to put out a mineral lick to supplement their intake of iron, phosphorus, calcium, copper, manganese, and magnesium. Poor mineral intake by goats can lead to severe bone growth issues, which may manifest as visible damage to the horns.   

3. Poor Protein Intake 

A keratin layer covers goat horns, which is the outer shell of the goat horn. When the goat doesn’t get enough protein in their diet, they may begin to recycle keratin as a protein for other aspects of growth that require protein. The result of this is weak and fragile horns because of a protein deficiency, specifically a lack of keratin.

Adding alfalfa and protein-rich grasses for grazing can really help improve your goat’s overall health and appearance.  

4. Growing Pains

Some horn damage is typical as goats are not born with a fully grown set of horns. Instead, the baby goats start growing horn buds, which develop into horns. These horns can develop over several years, with as much as a foot of growth per year, depending on the goat breed. 

Since the goat horn doesn’t grow from the tip but is pushed outward (just like a human nail) from the horn bed, the ends can become pressured and may crack or chip. When the damage is minimal, the goat will remove any broken bits by rubbing on trees and rocks. However, if the horn suffers severe splitting that bleeds, there may be cause for concern.  

5. Fighting and Play

Of course, we all know that goats have one particular thing they love to do—headbutt. When goats clash horns (and heads), they may damage their horns, split off chunks, and suffer severe cracks and bleeding. They may even rip a horn off if they are unlucky and lock horns with a larger goat. 

The damage caused by this physical source isn’t even always due to aggression. Kid goats butt heads from a young age. It’s normal play for them, even if it can have serious ouch results.  

How to Prevent Goat Horn Damage

Of course, my next question to my vet was what I could do to ensure my prize goats didn’t wreck themselves before they could be sold or breed more beautiful kiddies. You can do a few things to limit damage to your goat’s horns or prevent it entirely.  

Diet 

Goats that are kept in poor condition with limited grazing and only concentrated feed may suffer all manner of illnesses and degenerative diseases. To prevent dietary damage to horns, goats should have access to plenty and diverse grazing. 

Don’t overfeed your goats on concentrated sweet feeds unless you are producing meat or dairy goats, and even then, ensure you feed goat-specific feeds. 

Moisture Content

Like a human nail, a goat’s horn has specific moisture requirements. When a goat experiences severe rain or drought, they may have brittle or cracked horns. Ensure your goats have access to drinking water and water they can splash in if it’s hot. 

The moisture in their diet will also affect their horn and hoof quality.  

Treat Pre-Existing Physical Damage

As a responsible goat owner, you need to regularly inspect your goat herd, looking for signs of damage from rough play and rubbing on things (because goats are inquisitive and can easily do some damage by scratching their horns on something hard). 

If you see signs of damage, such as chips, cracks, scrapes, and cuts on the goat horns, it’s essential to regularly inspect the goat horns. Evaluate whether the damage is significant enough to require intercession and if you should remove the goat from the herd or continue monitoring the horn.  

By treating minor damage timely, you can prevent significant damage later. A cracked horn is likely to break off if the goat happens to headbutt a buddy in the herd. 

Herd Dynamic

For the most part, goats are happy to share their herd space, except for goat nannies that steal other goats’ babies in the first week after birth. If resources are scarce or your goat herd occupies a small area where there’s not enough room to move about, bullying behavior may result. 

When the herd dynamic becomes unstable, more fighting and headbutting will occur. The result of this will be an increased chance of horn damage. It’s best to split the herd into smaller units to ensure the goats don’t damage each other’s horns. 

Correct Disbudding of Horns When Kids

Many goats are disbudded as kids. The horn is removed before it can properly grow, with a hot iron, which is used to seal the horn bud, preventing further growth. When disbudding is done accurately with the correct medication applied, the injury to the goat is minimal, and the goat won’t grow a horn. However, if some of the horn buds remain untreated, the goat may grow a deformed horn, which can easily become damaged if the goat hooks on something or rubs against branches and stones.  

These additional horn growths are known as scurs. Ensure you properly disbud a goat to prevent future horn growth and damage. 

The Effect of Scurs on Goat Horns

As mentioned, scurs are the bits of untreated horn that grow out when a goat is unsuccessfully disbudded. While scurs aren’t quite horn, nor just hardened skin, these bone-like growths that may erupt from a disbudded horn can cause problems for the goat. 

Scurs can easily hook onto things in the goat’s environment, and these growths are irregularly shaped, meaning they can easily cut other goats while they play. Pulling scurs from the horn base can cause severe bleeding and infection and even lead to death. 

Disbudding a Kid Goat

It’s crucial to disbud a kid goat as early as possible to prevent scurs from forming. The disbudding process becomes much more lengthy and painful when the horn has had time to form. 

To disbud a kid goat, check their head just between the ears every couple of days. Some goat breeds develop horn buds within as little as the first week after birth. Once you feel the hard pointed nubs of the horn beds forming, it’s time to disbud the goat. 

Use a disbudding tool, which is an electric tool that burns the horn tip back into the horn bed, to remove the horn and prevent future growth. If done early, there is minimal bleeding, and the goat heals quickly. However, if done later, there is much more bleeding and trauma to the goat, and the risk of infection increases. 

Scurs develop when the disbudding is incomplete. When a section of the horn bed isn’t completely burned, the goat will grow scurs, which can lead to serious horn issues later.   

Preventing Scurs on Horns as Goats Grow

You can check that your goat’s horns are correctly sealed to prevent scurs. If signs of scurs forming appear, it’s vital that the affected areas are treated by sawing off the scurs, then sealing them with the disbudding iron.   

The Goat Horn Structure 

To better understand why goat horn damage is so severe, it’s important to learn a bit more about the goat horn structure. Unlike deer that drop their antlers once a year, goats carry their set of horns their whole life. 

The goat’s horn is composed of a soft inner core that’s blood and nerve-rich. This core extends to the sinus cavities and anchors the horn to the goat skull. Next, the horn develops several keratin layers that form the outer layers of the horn. Finally, the last hardened keratin layer shapes the goat horn we see. This layer often forms growth rings, and over time, the goat’s horn will grow further backward, curving back down over their shoulders (in some breeds). Other breeds form small pointed horns that never grow more than a few inches. 

When a horn is damaged, the injury can extend to the outer keratin layer or penetrate the inner horn, leading to severe bleeding, pain, and trauma. If a horn that’s been cracked, severed, or more is left untreated, it opens the door for infection and severe trauma. 

Treatment for a Damaged Goat Horn

Like me, you may also have a goat with damaged horns. What now? If you walk to the pasture where your goat suddenly looks strange with a split or broken or missing horn, you probably want to know what to do.  

1. Assess the Level of Damage

Firstly, do a visual assessment. Determine the extent of the damage. Are there signs of bleeding? Will the goat be okay on their own, or do you need to immediately take charge and move the goat to the barn for treatment?  

2. Determine Vascular Involvement

Bleeding on the goat horn itself will indicate that the horn suffered a severe injury. Remember, blood is a sign of vascular trauma, with damaged arteries and blood-rich tissue. If you see a bleeding horn, you should not detach it or further break it. Instead, apply pressure to stop the bleeding, or use a clotting agent like heat, styptic powder, and cornstarch.   

3. Decide on a Course of Action and Manage the Horn

Should the horn require removal due to severe damage, you need to take the following action—call your vet immediately. While some homesteaders are happy to perform the procedure themselves, the risk to your goat is significant. Remove the vascular tissue, and seal the keratin horn layer and the horn bed. This can be a large area for an adult goat that requires stitches and the proper medication to prevent infection. 

For injuries that are not as severe and where there is minor bleeding, the horn has cracked, or the tip of the horn is separating from the blood-rich core, management may include merely wrapping the horn and administering antibiotics. Over time, the horn core will retract, and the horn outer will eventually split into pieces and fall off. At this point, it may be necessary to grind the horn to remove any sharp edges that may cut the goat or their herd mates. 

Monitor mild injuries, such as hairline fractures of the horn, with no bleeding, which may only be a cosmetic flaw.  

Goat Horn Injuries: How to Treat Them

Treating a goat horn injury requires assessing the potential for further damage. Here are a few common concerns regarding how to manage goat horn injuries. 

How do you fix a cracked goat horn? 

Fixing a cracked horn will depend on how severely it is damaged. If the crack reaches the blood-rich inner core of the horn, removing the horn may be needed. Should the crack be in the hardened outer layer, the horn may continue growing with the crack. 

Goat horns won’t regrow when cracked or chipped through the outer keratin layer. The hardened tissue on the outside of the horn won’t knit like soft tissue will, so the horn will crack entirely and fall off, or the crack will remain in the horn.

Is it normal for goat horns to bleed? 

If a crack or break has damaged the goat horn, the internal structure may bleed since there is blood-rich tissue inside the horn. The goat will suffer significant blood loss if they bleed from their horns, so it’s not a “little blood” that can be left to heal on its own. A bleeding horn requires treatment.  

Will a goat’s horns grow back?

When a goat loses a horn, they won’t regrow a full horn. Instead, they may regrow scurs from the parts that were not damaged, which may need regular trimming to prevent them from causing problems for the goat. The horn won’t grow back when the whole horn bed is removed or sealed with heat.

Can goat horns heal?

Goat horns don’t heal like soft tissue. Instead, any injuries to the horn will remain as scars. When a goat is young, they may break pieces off the tips of their horns, which will not heal, but the horn will continue growing from the horn base.  

Do broken horns hurt?

If a goat breaks a horn, they may require pain management with medication as a multitude of nerves and blood-rich tissue inside the horn capsule, which will cause pain when the horn is broken or severed. The goat will not feel any pain when the injury doesn’t penetrate the horn’s fleshy core.  

Goat Horn FAQs

Do goats molt their horns?

Goats have a permanent set of horns they grow throughout their life. Therefore, goats don’t shed their horns, and the outer layer of the horns develops a growth ring each year, which is an accurate way to age a goat. 

Do goat horns need trimming?

Goat horns don’t usually need trimming. Disbudding a horn is different from trimming a horn. Cut it back when a horn has broken or developed a sharpened point. Trim the horn to prevent serious injury when the goats headbutt or fight.  

Why do people remove goat horns?

Removing goat horns occurs because a goat with a complete set of horns may inflict serious injury on other goats and people. The horns are disbudded or gradually trimmed back from the horn base.  

Conclusion

I was thrilled to learn that my kid goat didn’t have a serious injury, and what had looked like a cut was actually a scrape from playing with one of the other goats. I could smoothen out the scrape, then polish the horns just in time for photo time. 

By feeding my goats a balanced and nutritionally dense diet, I ensure my goats have strong horns that are less likely to break or crack. Lastly, I am careful about the rivalry between my goats as I don’t want horn injuries that may cost me the price of a show-quality goat. For more on training goats, why not read our detailed guide on goat training.