Dexter Cattle For Sale Discussion Board

The Irish Dexter Breed was founded as a true breed in 1890 when the Royal Dublin Society formed a breed association, created the first real Irish Dexter Herdbook along with a breed description, and set rules for registration.

The rules printed in the 1890 Irish Dexter Herdbook stated that folks could acquire any cattle of any breed and any background, and have that animal be judged against Irish Dexter standards. If the animal was the correct color and shape, it could be registered as a foundation “Dexter”, regardless of its actual background, regardless of its actual breed, and regardless of horn status.

The Irish Dexter standards printed by the Royal Dublin Society in 1890 said Dexters should be red or black with minimal white, and they should ALL have deep and thick and round bodies, with thick beefy quarters and short beefy legs, but said nothing about horns. So horned, scurred, and smooth-polled animals of any breed could be judged as a fine Dexter if they met the standards.

It's likely that all sorts of animals with true-horns and scur-horns and smooth-polled made it into the early Dexter herdbooks. The Royal Dublin Society obviously didn't care much about horns in Irish Dexters because they didn't mention horns in the Irish Dexter breed description, and didn't track horn status.

A cow named "Harley Poll" born April 16, 1894 appears in the early Irish herdbooks of the Royal Dublin Society as a foundation “Dexter”. Her breeder and background is unknown. George Habgood, owner of the “Harley” Dexter herd, acquired “Harley Poll” as an older likely smooth-polled cow that he thought had show-winning Dexter traits. Her former name might have been something like "Daisy", but since George Habgood wanted to start a polled line of Dexters, he renamed her to “Harley Poll” and registered her as a foundation Dexter because she met the 1890 Irish Dexter breed description.

It appears that George Habgood of the Harley Herd and and a few others including a neighboring herd called “Chantry” were developing some lines of polled Dexters in the early 1900’s. The Chantry herd has an animal registered as “Chantry Poll” in 1905 and she is related to the Harley Poll line of Dexters.

“Harley Poll” was almost certainly named “Harley Poll” because she was clearly polled. George Habgood acquired her for her polled gene to start a line of polled Dexters, which was absolutely allowed by the registry rules. It appears he used “P” names for his polled line.

The following is one of many descendancy pathways of the foundation Dexter poll line. None of these animals have records of being horned and none have photos of true horns.

Harley Poll 1894 (foundation poll Dexter)
Harley Polly 1900
Harley Pretty 1902
Harley Prudence 1905
Harley Penelope 1908
Brokenhurst Penelope 3rd 1822
Grinstead Plutocrat in 1933
Grinstead Principal 1938
Runnymede Peachstone 1940
Banwell Sandy 1944
Grinstead Peach Blossom 8th 1947
Grinstead Plover 1954

Some of these likely polled Dexters were likely smooth polled,… but some of their offspring may have had scur-horns and looked like horned Dexters. It's possible from this point forward that the poll gene was passed down via scur-horned animals that were dehorned. Many animals were being de-horned starting in the 1950’s. You can dehorn a scur-horned animal. Poll genes can easily hide in de-horned herds.

There are many, many complete lines of Dexters from “Harley Poll” down to “Godstone Esmeralda” with no records of horns and no photos of horns. It's very likely that the polled gene flowed down some of those many lines. All 16 of Esmeralda's great-great grandparents are direct descendants of “Harley Poll” and none have records of horns.

It's very likely that a good number of today's Dexters thought to be horned, actually are carrying a hidden poll gene. The only way to know for certain is to test for hidden poll genes. The test has only been available since about 2011. Very few animals assumed to be “horned” have ever been tested for hidden poll genes.

If you have any Dexters with less than big, thick, bold, upright horns, you might consider testing them for a hidden polled genes. They are the most likely to be carrying hidden poll genes.

PS. The good news here is that poll genes are a sign of Dexter purity, since they can now be traced back to the original population of legacy foundation Dexters in the 1890’s. So when you find some surprise poll genes in your “horned” herd, you can likely trace them back to “Harley Poll” and be proud of their pure foundational Dexter roots.

This is a picture of a purebred registered Dexter bull. He is tested and registered as having a hidden polled gene, and he has scur-horns. The polled gene can hide in animals with horns and can hide especially well in de-horned herds.

Kirk has said on other forums that he deals with facts. The fact is that there is no evidence whatsoever that Harley Poll was polled.

It is a fact that the transmission of one particular gene through 10 generations has a chance of less than one in a thousand.

The simultaneous transmission of polled and scur genes through ten generations is less than one in a million.

The fact is that at a time when dehorning was not generally done in the UK it is almost unthinkable that respected breeders and owners would not notice that polled animals were occurring in 50% of particular animals progeny.

Duncan

Kirk seems to be playing Devil's Advocate again. At least it will enliven this discussion board.
I would raise several points for consideration.
Firstly, Poll was used as an abbreviation for Polly, as in Poll/Polly parrot for example. It need not mean polled in the sense of hornless.
Secondly the photo of the bull does not show "scur" horns, these are a normal variant in British Dexters and in the archaeological record, where they are commonly known as "Celtic Shorthorn". Not exclusive to Dexters, also seen, for example, in European Limousin, where not dehorned as in Britain.
Thirdly the archaeological incidence of genetically polled cattle is vanishingly small. The most famous are two skulls from Roman Newstead in Lowland Scotland, the ancestral home of the polled Galloway. One skull was recently found in medieval deposits in Lincoln, which sparked an international discussion on the ZOOARCH discussion list (with over 1000 subscribers) as no one else has ever found one.
Fourthly, one of the foundation cows in Valerie Robert's herd (est. 1948) was a Grinstead Peachblossom cow. Valerie inbred this line for over 50 years and all progeny were horned. She ran a horned herd and was, to put it mildly, vehemently opposed to the concept of a polled Dexter. There is no way Valerie would have considered this cow family for her herd if there'd been the faintest suggestion of polled in the ancestry. There is good cine footage of the Grinstead herd in the 1940's (link in an earlier post on this forum) and all the herd are clearly horned.
Lastly (for now), would Kirk care to compare the incidence of polled in the Dexter families he's identified with other lines where there is known upgrading using Aberdeen Angus, Atlantic Finbar for instance.

My information has nothing to do with being a "Devil's Advocate" . I have a ton of genetics expertise and information analysis expertise and I have researched this very carefully.

Facts:

1. The 1890 Royal Dublin Society Dexter Herdbook volume 1, discussed five old Irish breeds of cattle including Dexters. They specifically detailed the horns of three of those breeds (but not Dexters) and they specifically stated that one breed was polled, but they said NOTHING about Dexters having horns.

2. The 1890 Herdbook discussed the likelihood that Dexters consisted of crosses of other breeds including foreign breeds

3. Red Poll Cattle were imported into Ireland in the 1860’s
The word “Poll” was very prominent in the 1890’s because the “Red Poll Cattle Society” was founded in 1888 and also Polled Herefords were being founded. Poll cattle were a big thing in 1890.

4. The registries didn't track the horn status of Dexters until 2000 in America, and 2008 in the UK. Breeders sometimes used the word “Poll” as a name or used names like “Migh Poldark” and “Llanfair's Polgaron” to denote polledness, because the registries didn't track horn status.

5. There were only three Dexters named “Poll” in all of Dexter history:
..Harley Poll 1894
..Chantry Poll 1905
..Waterville Poll 1903
None of the three had any record of horns. The Harley Herd and Chantry Herd were neighbors and appeared to be working together on some lines together, as they swapped some animals between their “Poll” lines.
Waterville Poll was purchased by The Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland, for the animal's special features.

6. Scur “genes” are very common in horned and polled Dexters. In horned Dexters the horns cover up any evidence of the scur genes. In polled animals, the scur genes can override the polled gene and allow horns to grow.

7. Of the many thousands of Dexters prior to 1980, none have records of horns, and only a very tiny handful have pictures of horns, while some are pictured as hornless or with scur-horns.

8 Scur-horns can be de-horned without the owner knowing the animal has a hidden poll gene.
Smooth polled animals can hide in de-horned herds when the owner assumes a polled cow must have been de-horned.

9. Poll genes and scur genes flow down through the generations just like red genes and black genes and dun genes and chondrodysplasia genes and other genes flow down through hundreds of generations.

10. Since Harley Poll was a very important foundation Dexter cow, and since she appears on thousands of today's Dexter pedigrees, multiple times, one could expect that some of her foundation genes were passed down to today's animals. It's very common for breed foundation animals to heavily influence a breed.

11. The Red "Horned" bull pictured above is tested to have a hidden polled gene. He is registered as polled with scurs in the Australian registry.

12. Very few cattle assumed to be "horned" have ever been tested for hidden polled genes.

13. All 62 animals on the first page of Godstone Esmeralda's pedigree, are direct descendants of Harley Poll. None of these 62 animals has record, nor photos of true horns. The polled gene only needed to come down one of these lines.



Testing assumed "horned" animals for hidden polled genes is the only way to prove they don't have a hidden polled gene.

Here is another tested young polled Dexter growing scur-horns. This young bull calf is the son of the red bull above that is tested as polled by UC Davis. Polled genes can hide.

With the greatest respect, as Duncan has pointed out, you have presented no hard evidence that Harley Poll was polled. You have explored an interesting hypothesis but given no irrefutable proof in support. Without this, you are presenting personal speculation, not evidence. Perfectly acceptable, provided this is made clear.
I have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of archaeological cattle frontal bones with horn cores. The Romano-British range, in particular, is a good match with horned cow skulls from the Vycanny herd, with at least one example of an almost perfect match. This range includes a higher proportion of the down turned Celtic Shorthorn type in Northern England, which encompasses tiny, scurred, horns, but no polled.
Have you looked at the lines with known Aberdeen Angus incursion as a comparison?

Of the many of thousands of Dexters in history prior to the 1980's, there are no records of horn status for any of them because horn status wasn't tracked.

We have to assume that each one of those thousands of historic Dexters has an “UNKNOWN” horn status until we have some degree of evidence one way or the other for each of them. We shouldn't ask for absolute proof of having a polled gene, unless we also ask for absolute proof of not having a polled gene.

If an individual animal has a photograph showing big, thick, bold, properly angled and properly colored horns, it's pretty good evidence that they likely don't have a hidden polled gene and fairly good evidence that they have true horns, but only about 100 such photos exist prior to 1980. There are photos of Dexters with scurs and photos of animals without horns and that's pretty good evidence that they could be polled.

We have reasonable proof that polled genes were in Ireland before the 1890's foundation of the Dexter breed. Here is an article discussing the import of Red Polled Sussex Cattle (a parent of the Red Poll breed) into Ireland in 1861 where they were crossed with other Irish breeds. The article also mentions that Sussex Red Polled cattle were being mixed with Devons, one of the likely parents of Dexters.

It's possible and likely that all sorts of genes including black genes and horn genes and polled genes came into Dexters via the occasional purposeful and accidental outcrosses over the more recent decades, but it's almost a certainty that any of those genes were already in Dexters from the foundation animals that already had a bit of everything in them.

It's almost a certainty that any polled genes that possibly came down from the 1960’s Atlantic Finbar experiment are identical to polled genes already in the Dexter Breed from the foundation.

I'm going off at a tangent here, since Godstone Esmeralda has been invoked. I had Godstone Abby and the attached photos are, in my opinion, a damning indictment of husbandry in the Godstone herd. Abby was sold, in very poor condition, as "run with the bull" at the Stoneleigh RBST sale, where she was bought by Bill Quay Community farm. Abby proved not to be in calf and didn't hold to AI. She was sold to me to see if she would hold to natural service, she didn't and went for beef (and my reference collection) at 9 years old.
On cleaning the bones, it became apparent why she had been in such poor condition at the Stoneleigh sale. One lower jaw had suffered severe trauma causing the bone to break and loss of teeth. This would have been agonising in a ruminant having to chew cud. Even using the undamaged jaw, the constant movement would have irritated the broken bone. In my opinion, this animal should have been shot when the accident happened.
It must have been a serious accident to have caused such extensive damage to the jaw, there does not appear to have been any veterinary intervention, and the knacker man was certainly not called. With such an apparently laissez faire attitude to husbandry, I'm not surprised that the ancestry of Godstone Esmeralda has been called into question. After all, Burke's Peerage is commonly referred to as the biggest work of fiction in the English language.

Concerning Godstone Esmeralda, nearly all of us had false information about Dexters in the past, so we were forced to invent possible answers to explain her polledness.

Here is the false information that made us question Esmeralda's pedigree:

Myth: The original 1890 Irish Dexter Breed Standard required horns so all foundation animals had horns (False - There was no requirement for horns and no mention of horns for Dexters in the Irish Registry ).

Myth: Dexters were a 100% true horned breed prior to the 1980’s (False - We have photos proving otherwise).

Myth: Polled genes are completely dominant and can't hide in animals with horns (false - we have photos and DNA tests proving polled genes can hide in animals with horns)

Myth: Esmeralda was born to two horned parents and four horned grandparents and eight horned great grandparents all with big bold glorious Dexter horns (False - there were no photos of horns, and no records of horns).

Now that we have a better picture of the real history and real science, there is no need to disparage the breeder with stories of mismanagement.

We can further understand the real story by identifying Dexters that have less than big, thick, bold, upright, perfectly shaped horns and test them for hidden polled genes. Very very few "horned" Dexters have ever been tested for hidden polled genes.

Here is a young Dexter cow with horns, registered as polled. She was tested as heterozygous-polled, twice by two different labs. Polled genes can definitely hide. I notice that her horns are a little thinner at the base than most true horns.

Kirk has published this picture on every site where he is still permitted to post. On his own FB web page the owner of this cow chimed in stating there are two tests showing this cow is polled. I have repeatedly requested both of them to SHOW THE RESULTS. They have not. Kirk is trading in what has become the normal around the world but for sure in the US. . .. . . .FAKE. . . . . . . "news". FAKE.. .. commentary. Here in the US it is so bad they don't even offer the "whisper of possibility" anymore. They just make up stories and plaster them around for the gullible inclined to believe them.
They are calling an animal with a PC/H result as being polled because a polled parent has passed a polled gene. I know of a number of animals that are HORNED, tested as HORNED, from two hetero polled parents. ( the sire and dam were polled but also carried a horned gene, and passed the horn gene).

So .. .. . two weeks later, and the test results have yet to appear. Simple as taking a photo of them with a cell phone and uploading.

I seem to be fresh out of Billy Goat Gruff tonight.

The Dexters pictured above with horn growths, that also have a hidden polled gene, are not my animals. The animals are tested as having a poll gene, and are registered as polled by the registries. I'm trying to get copies of all their polled tests. I do have one so far. Here it is.





PS. For those of you who don't understand Judy's reference to the term "Fake News", it's a term used in the US by folks who deny science. If scientific information is released in the US, certain uneducated Americans claim it's "Fake News" so they can hold on to their myths and false beliefs. They also try to ban science in school books and ban scientific discussions about genetics.

At Kirk's request, I tested Trillium Cluny (2141), an AI-bull (he was collected in Canada) for which I have straws of semen. The test for Polled was done at UC-Davis VGL, and the results are that he was Horned, no copies of either Polled molecular marker are present. Trillium Cluny was sired by Woodmagic Beaver 2nd and out of Woodmagic Waxwing.

In 2011, the likelihood that the poll gene is hiding in Dexters with stunted horn growths was discussed here in this forum. But that was before testing was available, and it was before we discovered the likelihood that there have always been some Dexters with the polled gene, since the foundation. Now that testing is available, we could test some of these animals (as Patti of Kansasdexters has so kindly been helping with in the US).

In the past, finding poll genes in Dexters was treated as sign of suspected breeding mistakes, but it's pretty clear that the polled gene has been in the breed since the very beginning.

Does anyone have any tail hairs/semen from "horned" Dexters with stunted horn growths that we could test for hidden poll genes?

Here is that 2011 discussion: