Herford with horns?

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lennie

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Okay, I thought all my cows were polled Herefords, in fact none of them have horns, but yesterday when I got up close to my almost year old black hereford steer, I see he has little horns coming out? Can they throw back? I have had two calves out of this cow and the same bull and the first one was a heifer and she is polled. Mom is polled and I thought dad was too!

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I was surprised, and I hate the dehorning process.
 
lennie":bp5iopst said:
Okay, I thought all my cows were polled Herefords, in fact none of them have horns, but yesterday when I got up close to my almost year old black hereford steer, I see he has little horns coming out? Can they throw back? I have had two calves out of this cow and the same bull and the first one was a heifer and she is polled. Mom is polled and I thought dad was too!

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I was surprised, and I hate the dehorning process.

If he's a yearling and they are still small, they are probably scurs, not horns.

George
 
Scurs??? They are kinda small I would say about 1 - 2 inches long maybe. Can you explain, will they get bigger?
 
Herefords.US":moxmy4j7 said:
lennie":moxmy4j7 said:
Okay, I thought all my cows were polled Herefords, in fact none of them have horns, but yesterday when I got up close to my almost year old black hereford steer, I see he has little horns coming out? Can they throw back? I have had two calves out of this cow and the same bull and the first one was a heifer and she is polled. Mom is polled and I thought dad was too!

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I was surprised, and I hate the dehorning process.

If he's a yearling and they are still small, they are probably scurs, not horns.

George

Ditto. I've got some 14-15 month old steers with scurs. They're about 1-2" long, maybe. Haven't seen the steers in awhile so I can't say for sure.

A yearling with actual horns carries a pretty good sized set.
 
lennie":pcoudpte said:
Okay, I thought all my cows were polled Herefords, in fact none of them have horns, but yesterday when I got up close to my almost year old black hereford steer, I see he has little horns coming out? Can they throw back? I have had two calves out of this cow and the same bull and the first one was a heifer and she is polled. Mom is polled and I thought dad was too!

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I was surprised, and I hate the dehorning process.
purebred black hereford?
 
At that age, if you grab a scur there will be some wiggle. If it's a horn it will be tight, i.e., no wiggle.
Horns can crop up but only if both parents carry a gene for horns. Polled being dominant simply means that if they have one polled gene they will be polled. Scurs are a totally different set of genes. The reason you don;t see scurs on horned cattle is because the horn growing dominates the scurring. I have seen a couple of cows with horns that had little nubs growing near the base, but they were few and far between.
 
ALACOWMAN":2gicjhbl said:
lennie":2gicjhbl said:
Okay, I thought all my cows were polled Herefords, in fact none of them have horns, but yesterday when I got up close to my almost year old black hereford steer, I see he has little horns coming out? Can they throw back? I have had two calves out of this cow and the same bull and the first one was a heifer and she is polled. Mom is polled and I thought dad was too!

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I was surprised, and I hate the dehorning process.
purebred black hereford?

Sorry Ala, I can't help myself. A couple of days ago you were griping at my post because I (basically) put a comma were a period should be. And "it's the type of misquote that causes BS on the boards". I'm sure you meant somthing else, just as I did, but where is the word "purebred"? :D :D Did you mean "is it a purebred Balck Hereford?

Alan
 
Along with what Dun said, you are more likely to have scurs on a bull calf than a heifer. It takes two scur genes to result in scurs on a heifer but only one scur gene is required for a bull calf to have scurs. I don't know all the details but we saw this with out own cows and calves. We had some bull calves born from horned cows and from homozygous polled and non-scurred bulls. None of the half sibling heifers had scurs. I scratched my head on that for a while until I thought about what was happening. Apparently, our horned cows have a scur gene in addition to the horned gene.
The one scur gene was enough to result in scurred bull calves.

Hope this makes sense.
Farmgirl
 
Farmgirl":2m2xdjw8 said:
Along with what Dun said, you are more likely to have scurs on a bull calf than a heifer. It takes two scur genes to result in scurs on a heifer but only one scur gene is required for a bull calf to have scurs. I don't know all the details but we saw this with out own cows and calves. We had some bull calves born from horned cows and from homozygous polled and non-scurred bulls. None of the half sibling heifers had scurs. I scratched my head on that for a while until I thought about what was happening. Apparently, our horned cows have a scur gene in addition to the horned gene.
The one scur gene was enough to result in scurred bull calves.

Hope this makes sense.
Farmgirl

So scurs are a sex-linked trait?
 
milkmaid":337cb0ll said:
Farmgirl":337cb0ll said:
Along with what Dun said, you are more likely to have scurs on a bull calf than a heifer. It takes two scur genes to result in scurs on a heifer but only one scur gene is required for a bull calf to have scurs. I don't know all the details but we saw this with out own cows and calves. We had some bull calves born from horned cows and from homozygous polled and non-scurred bulls. None of the half sibling heifers had scurs. I scratched my head on that for a while until I thought about what was happening. Apparently, our horned cows have a scur gene in addition to the horned gene.
The one scur gene was enough to result in scurred bull calves.

Hope this makes sense.
Farmgirl

So scurs are a sex-linked trait?

Yes, MM

dominant in males recessive in females.

What is still not quite conclusive at this stage is whether homozygous polled bulls can have scurs or not. Last I heard it was still being researched. Or maybe I should state that its still inconclusive whether scurs are an indication of heterozygous polled bulls.
 
Now that is something that I would like to read about...the explination of the scurrs being sex linked. Seen them on both sexes but never have really carred about it much it. In fact I don't remember ever seeing scurrs on any Herf that we've owned, either horned or polled...still waiting for a black one...maybe our black Lim bull will give us one.
Just my two bits worth...asked for or not. DMc
 
lennie":3eweql7t said:
Okay, I thought all my cows were polled Herefords, in fact none of them have horns, but yesterday when I got up close to my almost year old black hereford steer, I see he has little horns coming out?

Since this calf is a yearling, I suspect they are scurs. True horns would be much longer by this point in time.
 
This is interesting reading. I have two cows with scurs, can I assume that the scur gene in the cows are recessive? Also that the scur gene has nothing to do with the horn gene?

Thanks,
Alan
 
Alan":26pdc4ue said:
This is interesting reading. I have two cows with scurs, can I assume that the scur gene in the cows are recessive? Also that the scur gene has nothing to do with the horn gene?

Thanks,
Alan

From what I remember being told a few years ago that scurs and horns are from different genes so they are not related. Several of my bulls carry scurs no big deal to me. Keynote was scurred.

Jeff
 
I am still waiting on him to comment on the black part as there is no such thing as a black hereford. So if its black then there is no telling what is in the woodpile on a crossbred F-1 or F-2 calf.
 
jw":5b5f6jqi said:
there is no such thing as a black hereford

american black hereford association

http://www.blackhereford.com

A while back CB, I and a few others started the ABBA, American Black Baldy Association...... but our office and plans were moved to another location and all was lost... :( . Not sure if the problem was the breed or the ethics of the planning commission. :D
 

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