I have a herd of polled herefords and I am running a polled bull an a horned bull. Will all the calves that the horned bull sires have horns or will it be 50 50? This is the first time using a horned bull and was curious.
polled and horned hereford
- Thread starter Daniel B
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Aaron
Well-known member
Polled is dominant. So if your cows are truly 100% polled, all the calves will be polled off the horned bull.
It isn;t quite that simple. If all of the cows are homozygous polled all the calves will be polled. If the polledd bull is homozygous polled all of his calves will be polled. If the horned bull happens to breed a cow that is heterozygous polled you could get horns on some of his calves.
We had a registered Polled Hereford cow that had one horned ancestor back about 4-5 generations. We bred her to a heterozygous black heterozygous polled bull 3 times. All the calves were black but the second one had horns.
We had a registered Polled Hereford cow that had one horned ancestor back about 4-5 generations. We bred her to a heterozygous black heterozygous polled bull 3 times. All the calves were black but the second one had horns.
Aaron
Well-known member
Just for the record, when I say 100% polled, I mean homozygous polled. Heterozygous polled is not true polled imho. More like 'polled - with some upgrades'. :cowboy:
mrvictordomino
Well-known member
Sounds like the registered Angus weren't pure Angus.wtrapp":2w4ihdp7 said:
Red Bull Breeder
Well-known member
Were the ones with horns bull calves or heifer calves??
Red Bull Breeder":1copk4bh said:
I have to ask why does that matter as far as horns go?
I have Polled Herefords, but bought some semen from a couple of horned bulls a couple of years ago. I decided to check into my cows pedigrees, looking for horned animals. Results were shocking to me, none without horns in the background, most 3,4 or 5 gens back. Have a horned steer out of two polled animals from last years crop. Just wonder what the percentage of polled Herfs are true polled animals.
Alan
Withe Herfords all Polled means is that the individual is polled. All of the polled lines originated from horned lines. The whole deal boilsdown to heterozygous or homozygous polled just like it does for the purebred continentals.Alan":habgutl1 said:
Herefords.US
Well-known member
Alan":152mslyu said:
That depends on what your definition of "true polled animals" is.
If you mean homozygous polled, they can test for that, and there's a few good AI bulls available. But it does seem like most of the ones that I consider "good" are heterozygous polled.
If you mean having no horned blood anywhere in their pedigree, that answer would be zero, I expect.
George
Alan":32h1s9v1 said:
I'm not RBB, but I think he is getting at a lot of scurs get confused for horns and with the sex link in the inheritance of scurs it is far more likely to get "horned" bull calves than "horned" heifer calves.
Off course in the case of true horns it doesn't make any difference.
Thanks Dun and George, good complete answers. I knew the polled animals were bred from the horned, but figured on seeing horned animal further back in the pedigrees. George that is the reason I bought some Harland and 3027 semen, I liked what I was seeing in the animals with horned genetics introduced. Not to imply any F1 type of action, but just maybe a better possibility of a better calf.
Alan
Alan
