Angus Dehorner Gene

[JWhite]

I understand that the natural dehorner gene is a dominate gene that is passed on to offspring. I have a little bull that is half Angus, half Limousin. How strong is the dehorner gene when my bull is bred to my shorthorn?

 

[dun]

If he is out of a horned cow he would be heterozygous polled, i.e. 1 horn gene and 1 polled gene. If bred to horned cows you would expect half of the calves to be polled and half to be horned.
If he is out of polled cow he could be either heterozygous polled or homozytgous polled, i.e. 2 polled genes. If he is homozygous no matter what he's bred to, all of the calves would be polled.

dun

 

[Kent]

Dun just about said it all, and I would only add that occasionally the polled gene is incompletely dominant on brahman or heavily influenced brahman cross cattle. On these cows, you will occasionally see a calf with small or banana horns when the sire is a homozygous polled bos taurus bull. If you have British or Continental cattle, Dun has got you covered with his explanation.

 

[dun]

Dun just about said it all, and I would only add that occasionally the polled gene is incompletely dominant on brahman or heavily influenced brahman cross cattle. On these cows, you will occasionally see a calf with small or banana horns when the sire is a homozygous polled bos taurus bull. If you have British or Continental cattle, Dun has got you covered with his explanation.

That odd horn from Brahman influenced cattle is a totally different gene set. It used to be referred to as the African gene, don;t know what it's called today. Scurs are sometimes mistaken for horns too, that's it's own gene set also.

dun

 

[Kent]

Interesting. I knew that about the scurs, but not the African gene phenomenon. I always wondered how the horns showed up on the brahmans. Makes sense.

 

[dun]

Interesting. I knew that about the scurs, but not the African gene phenomenon. I always wondered how the horns showed up on the brahmans. Makes sense.

I'm reaching back a wasy, but I think the gene indicator was Af. Of course they may have found out that the african gene was all hogwash, what with modern science and all.

dun

 

[JWhite]

Thanks for the information

 

[dun]

This is from 1996 and address' the Af gene, also scurs and probability of horned calves

http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/an_sci/extensi ... g96-3.html

dun