• Korean Journal of Veterinary Service
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.253-257
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• 2015

Bull-boxing in South Korea is a form of competitions in which bulls measure their strength with each other in the form of pushing by putting their heads together. Bull-boxing has been admitted after being designated as a play culture by the government because it does not cause great injuries to animals' bodies and has strong positive aspects such as contributing to livestock farmers' leisure activities, encouragement of animal husbandry, and communities' economic development. However, bull-boxing sometimes causes damage to the head and horns due to the heavy bodies. According to the results of examinations of these damage cases, damage that caused irregular shapes of the base of horns was identified in 31.5% of fighting bulls. The damage to horns is thought to have been caused by the great forces of fighting bulls repeatedly imposed to each other's horns during bull-boxing that caused minute fractures leading to damage to the blood vessels inside the horns resulting in the blocking of delivery of nutrients to the horns causing the deformation of the horns into abnormal shapes. Since bulls' bodies are injured during bull-boxing although the injuries are small as bull-boxing is mainly conducted by pushing, animal protection groups regard bull-boxing as cruelty to animals and request to stop bull-boxing. The present study aims to develop animal welfare type headgears that can protect bulls' horns and heads in order to protect fighting bulls during bull-boxing in terms of animal protection and welfare.