• The horn is a heavily perfused, life-long growing organ. It is linked to the digestive system, important for body care, and serves to communicate among other cows.
• Cows and goats wear their horns with pride and mindfulness. They clarify, for example the hierarchy at a distance, by showing each other their horns.
• The dehorning came only with industrialized agriculture.
• The horn cow initiative is entirely voluntary and promotion. It contains no prohibition of dehorning, but leaves the decision as before the livestock owners.
• The initiative is based on an incentive system: Anyone who keeps horns, adult cows, bulls or goats and billy-goats, should be fairly compensated for the extra effort.

• The dehorning is unnecessary. A herd of horn-bearing animals can be kept in any kind of stable animal welfare.
• Horned animals need more stable space and intensive handling. This extra effort should be adequately compensated.
• Dehorning is a painful, massive invasion. In livestock still allowed today, such a type of mutilation in pets has long been prohibited.
• 20% of dehorn calves suffer from long-term pain, as revealed by a study by the University of Bern. Further burdens are still unexplored.
• Both the postcard Switzerland and the idyllic advertising full with horned animals pretend to us. In Switzerland there are only about 10% horn-bearing cows left.
• With your courageous YES to the Horn Cow initiative change that now.

Risk of accident
Although horns involve a risk of injury. But with proper stable planning and good animal relation it can be minimized. Very important: The pet owners still decide whether they hold animals with or without horns.

Costs
Implementation via subsidies will cost around 15 million francs a year, which has plenty of room in the existing agricultural budget of 3,000 million francs, without an increase.

Anchoring in Federal Constitution
For 9 years, the concern met with sympathy everywhere, but did not trigger a concretization at the federal level, neither in the federal administration nor in the parliament. That's why the popular initiative was born. It comes with a short, clear complement of an existing constitutional article. A counter-proposal that would have made a vote unnecessary, was rejected by the competent Council of States Council.

--> The amendment of the Federal Constitution
--> Chronicle of the initiative