Red in black bull

Kirk- Cascade Herd US · Sun Oct 14, 2007 4:16 am

wagra dexters wrote:The DCAI registration form asks for 'H', 'P', or 'S', in the Horn box.
Margaret.

I assume that selecting "S" would mean that the animal is polled, but with scurs. While "P" would mean that the animal is polled without scurs.

Kathy Millar · Post by **Kathy Millar** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 5:33 am

I just had my heifer disbudded at 4 1/2 months of age and it seemed that her horns were very slow to develop. They were the size of my thumbnail. Could she have been scurred?? She is out of Saltaire Platinum and of the 3 calves, one was poled, one was horned and then her.....

Kirk- Cascade Herd US · Sun Oct 14, 2007 3:11 pm

Kathy Millar wrote:I just had my heifer disbudded at 4 1/2 months of age and it seemed that her horns were very slow to develop. They were the size of my thumbnail. Could she have been scurred?? She is out of Saltaire Platinum and of the 3 calves, one was poled, one was horned and then her.....

Yes, she could be polled but with scurs (instead of horns) and you might have "de-horned" the scurs. To find out if she is polled, you can test breed her on a horned bull. 50% of her calves should be polled (if she has a polled gene). Now, that said, even if her first 4 or 5 calves are horned you can't be absolutely certain that she is not polled - you would have to have 9 or 10 horned calves to absolutely prove she wasn't polled. But you only have to have one polled (with or without scurs) calf to prove that she is polled.

Doesn't that make you wonder if somewhere in Dexterdom, there have been a couple of fresh polled mutations occur but the owners "dehorned" the polled but scurred calves not knowing they were very valuable for their polledness? They probably castrated them too if they were bulls and then sent them to the table.

All that said, it usually takes two scur genes to grow scurs on a polled heifer. So the chance that your girl has both two scur genes and a polled gene is small, so she is likely horned (but with slow horns).

Kirk

Broomcroft · Post by **Broomcroft** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 3:57 pm

Does the size of the scurs tell you anything?

It's a pity, but I'm sending a 2 year old black polled bull (with very small scurs) who's by an Elite polled sire, to the abattoir soon.

Kirk- Cascade Herd US · Mon Oct 15, 2007 3:11 pm

Broomcroft wrote:Does the size of the scurs tell you anything?

There appear to be other unknown genes and conditions that affect the size of the scurs, so the size doesn't tell you much in terms of genotype according to my research.

Kathy Millar · Post by **Kathy Millar** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 4:24 pm

Well, I will register her as horned to be on the safe side. I might breed her myself but it will depend on who else I can sell. Don't feel bad, Clive. I just had a red polled bull calf out of Saltaire Platinum castrated. I am planning to become a one cow (plus calves) herd.