Horny Question

[rodmet]

Now steady, not that horny. Excuse me if I am being stupid but can someone who has registered on-line tell me how to answer the question on horns? The choice is none or polled.Our calf did have horns but they have been removed so which category do I choose? Isnt polled and none the same thing anyway???

[Sylvia]

I took it to mean:

None - they have been removed by disbudding or dehorning.
Polled - No horn growth at all, so naturally without horns.

Once again, the short time in which we are allowed to register means this isn't the easiest thing to judge. Rather like colour!

[rodmet]

Thanks Sylvia - what then applies if you leave the horns on(heaven forbid) ??!!

[Sylvia]

Mmm, I wondered about that, I can't remember if you can leave that box blank or if it was just multiple choice between the 2 options.

[rodmet]

Alles Klar, after you have submitted your info the record of what you have sent shows Horns P if you have filled in the polled box. So if you your calf is naturally polled it is the none box. If it has horns it is in the polled box. If you intend to leave the horns on I guess you fill in the polled box and tell a half truth.
I will now take my anorak off and say how excellent the whole on-line registration process is.

[forestblaze]

We leave both boxes blank as niether apply , our herd is horned ,Sue.

[Woodmagic]

I think some revision is needed on this one. I have recorded mine as ‘none’ since they are horned and I disbud. To me the word ‘polled’ means they are naturally polled. We need some clarification on this, or the results are not going to reflect any degree of accuracy with different interpretations on it. I must confess I spent some time cogitating on my first entry.

[Broomcroft]

What about scurs?

[Duncan MacIntyre]

Scurs of course are usually not apparent till the animal is of some age, maybe even a year old. Likewise dehorned animals are very often not dehorned at the time of registration - what is important to me is to record when possible what is going to be a characteristic of that animal - colour, polled or non polled, long or short? extra teats should be recorded if we want to select against them but not much point otherwise. Some things cannot easily be determined at birth or even later, eg is a polled animal homozygous or heterozygous polled - not easy to be certain except that a polled animal out of one polled and one horned parent will definately be heterozygous. The impact of the polled gene will become much more striking in a few years when there are likely to be more homozygous polled animals about. I think it would be really useful to have BD1 status recorded for all breeding animals, not just bulls.

I do agree that some fine tuning is needed on the system for the recording of horns/polled. I wonder if the system was drawn up by someone who really knew a lot about computers and not too much about cattle heads, then those commissioning the work have not realised that it was not really asking what it seemed to be asking in this little section.

Duncan

[Duncan MacIntyre]

Scurs of course are usually not apparent till the animal is of some age, maybe even a year old. Likewise dehorned animals are very often not dehorned at the time of registration - what is important to me is to record when possible what is going to be a characteristic of that animal - colour, polled or non polled, long or short? extra teats should be recorded if we want to select against them but not much point otherwise. Some things cannot easily be determined at birth or even later, eg is a polled animal homozygous or heterozygous polled - not easy to be certain except that a polled animal out of one polled and one horned parent will definately be heterozygous. The impact of the polled gene will become much more striking in a few years when there are likely to be more homozygous polled animals about. I think it would be really useful to have BD1 status recorded for all breeding animals, not just bulls.

I do agree that some fine tuning is needed on the system for the recording of horns/polled. I wonder if the system was drawn up by someone who really knew a lot about computers and not too much about cattle heads, then those commissioning the work have not realised that it was not really asking what it seemed to be asking in this little section.

Duncan

[Duncan MacIntyre]

Where is that delete button?

Duncan

[Inger]

Yes Duncan, being able to list weither the animal is a carrier or non-carrier, makes mating decisions a lot easier.

Our forms ask if the calf is horned or polled. Weither or not it is de-horned is beside the point genetically. Its either born with horns or not. Scurs have the same rate of producing horned offspring as heterozygous polled animals. So no harm will be done by listing it as polled. We still don't have many homozygously polled Dexter bulls in NZ, but by using polled cows, the rate of polled calves is higher.

[Sylvia]

I thought scurs were a result of poor dehorning. Surely they don't occur naturally on true polled animals, or have I been labouring under a misconception all these years?

[Kirk- Cascade Herd US]

I thought scurs were a result of poor dehorning. Surely they don't occur naturally on true polled animals, or have I been labouring under a misconception all these years?

Man (or woman) made scurs are the result of poor de-horning AND there are also genetic scurs that occur on naturally polled animals, so you have been half right.

Both horned animals and polled animals can carry scur genetics. The horns of horned animals cover the scurs. Each animal can have 2,1, or 0 scur genes. The scur gene is a little tricky in that it exhibits differently on homozygous polled vs. heterozygous polled and bulls vs. cows and depends on whether their are 1 or 2 scur genes.

Generally, scurring may not occur in females unless they have 2 scur genes (one from each parent). But if the female has two scur genes and also has two polled genes, then the scurring will not exhibit. In males you only need 1 scur gene to exhibit scurs in the case of heterozygous polled bulls. However, a homozygously polled bull may not exhibit scurs in the case of 1 scur gene, but may exhibit if there are 2 scur genes.

I've used the word "may" instead of "must" because in addition to the scur genes themselves, there are some other unknown modifiers.

Does this make sense?

Kirk

www.cascademeadowsfarm.com

[Broomcroft]

All my "polled" steers have natural small scurs of varying sizes. My understanding is that these are accepted in the UK as polled animals, but in Australia they would not be accepted as polled.