Calf has me stumped

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Aaron

Aaron

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Stratton, ON, Canada
Has anyone encountered a calf that displays textbook hypotrichosis, but isn't?

Got a calf off a commercial cow from a bull that tested free of the hypotrichosis gene. I've been around hairless calves before and this is exactly like one. Short, curly, 'wirey' hair at birth and he is slowly losing it over the last month or so.

I'm thinking on sending a sample of the calf away to be tested, or maybe just phoning the association and raising the alarm bells - maybe get them to pay for the test.
 
We had our first one this spring. I suspected we had some carriers because of a carrier way back in their lineage.

I was going to ask some questions about it, this might be a good thread for that.

Both parents need to be carriers for it to be expressed in the calf, right?

If both parents are carriers, what are the odds their calf will be hairless? I'm guessing it's less than 25%, or else we've got a lot few carriers than I thought we might.

Our calf was about 75% hairless when born and lost most of the rest soon after. We put the cow & calf in the barn right away and turned them out when the calf was about 2 months old and was covered with hair. Our calf lost hair during the 1st month and grew it in the second month. She looks pretty much like the rest until you get close and see the hair is different texture, and frosted.

If there was no way another bull could be her sire, I'd get her tested.
 
No other bull was with them. It's a good isolated chunk of pasture from other herds.

I know the cow carries the gene as her sire went back to some heavy Butler breeding and he threw hairless when he bred one of his daughters years ago.
 
Not all calves loosing hair is genetic

http://www.canadiancattlemen.ca/vetadvice/hairloss.aspx

Is it a premature calf that had a fever or a bad case of scours. Could be parasites too. How much hair is it loosing and where at on its body. Also double check to make sure the sire was tested not just a case where they told me he was tested. I know of an almost identicle sounding case last spring where the guy thought the same as you and the calf grew out just fine. It wasn't hypo.
 

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