Vision shows baby goats screaming in agony as their horn buds are burnt off with hot iron at a Victorian farm. WARNING: GRAPHIC

WARNING: Graphic content

Horrific hidden camera vision shows baby goats screaming in agony as their horn buds are burnt off with hot irons at a Victorian farm.

The practice, known as ‘disbudding’, prevents the growth of a goat’s horns and is typically performed on female babies when they are a few days old.

In the video, farmers can be seen plucking the goats from their pen, holding them down over their knee and holding the hot iron to each horn.

They scream, writhe and wriggle in pain while other infant animals watch on. When the process is complete, they are thrown back into the pen.

Animal welfare group Aussie Farms released the harrowing vision on Monday morning, which they say was captured at Lochaber Farm in Meredith.

It’s the first time the controversial practice of disbudding has been filmed and circulated publicly, the organisation’s operation director Alix Livingstone said.

“This is just another well-kept industry secret that, as usual, has fallen on activists to expose,” Ms Livingstone said.

Although “clearly cruel”, disbudding is legally allowed due to a commercial farming exemption in animal welfare legislation in Victoria.

The release comes several weeks after hidden camera footage from another Victorian goat farm showed newborn males being bludgeoned to death in front of their mothers.

The vast majority of males are considered ‘waste’ because they can’t produce milk and therefore killed shortly after birth.

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Groups like the RSPCA provide advice on humane farming practices for goats, including for contentious issues like disbudding, urging the use of available alternatives to avoid inflicting pain on goats.

“The best way to avoid this painful procedure is to breed goats without horns, known as polled,” the RSPCA recommends.

“Polled animals are less likely to hurt or injure other animals, are less likely to hurt or injure themselves, and are easier to handle.”

When horns must be removed, the RSPCA urges the practice be done by a “competent operator” and with the use of a local anaesthetic, which “must be given prior to disbudding each horn bud and pain relief must be given immediately following the procedure”.

The RSPCA advice is not currently reflected in legislation or industry practice however, and disbudding without pain relief is widespread.

In the captured vision, it doesn’t appear that pain relief was given to the animals either before or after the disbudding process.

“Self-regulation does not work,” Ms Livingstone said.

“It’s time for our state governments – starting with Victoria – to take responsibility and close the legal loopholes that allow these and other horrible things to happen every day in Australian farms and slaughterhouses.

“Goats and other ‘livestock’ animals are no less capable of feeling pain and fear, no less capable of suffering, than our dogs and cats, and it’s time they were given the same protection under the law.”

Meredith Dairy, which owns Lochaber Farm, was approached for comment.