Scurred Angus?

[Horseless]

I bought some bred heifers from a large Angus purebred operation here in Montana last fall over superior auction. When I got them home and started working them, I noticed a couple with horns (either dehorned or scurred). I later contacted the rep. and ask about that, and he said it is not unheard of from the angus breed. Has anybody ever heard of that one????

 

[hillsdown]

Although I am not an Angus breeder I do know that it should say on all registration papers as to which the animal is, horned ,polled or scurred.Scurred is a defect in the polled gene.So if they are PB then refer to your papers and it should also say multipolled, Htz ;etc.

 

[Horseless]

These ones were not registered, but were supposed to be all angus. After they calved, I was even less impressed, the dispostion on them were bad.

 

[hillsdown]

I am sorry that you found problems with your new purchase I think it is always worse when you buy from proven producers with all the hype and they(the cows) just don't work.Do you still have your catalog that you can go back and refer to each lot by?Because usually they list even unregistered pedigree.If they are scurred than it really won't be a problem as I do have scurred cows that have always given me polled calves but I only use polled bulls either natural or AI.But disposition is a completely different thing alot I big producers don't really see disposition as they have so many different people working with them and the best handling equipment;and I don't care what breed you are they aren't all sweethearts.I am sure a good R Angus breeder will reply and hopefully help you to resolve your problem.
Good luck.

 

[seth]

Scurrs are not "a defect in the polled gene". They are in fact the result of a completely different gene and naturally will only appear when in the presence of the polled gene.

Angus cattle can only be registered when they are polled so the reg papers will not refer to polled scurred or horned. On very rare occasions an Angus animal will develop scurrs and if it does it is ineligible for registration.

Since you had 2 animals with scurrs it seems likely that the heifers you purchased had some other breed in their background.

Hope this helps

 

[Northern Rancher]

Or Traveller 722 lol.

 

[hillsdown]

So Seth now I am curious also; is it common in the PB angus breed to sell animals as purebred with different blood lines in them that would cause scurrs or horns?Or was Horseless kind of sold sub par animals by a so called PB breeder.If I bought pb Angus now knowing the stipulations for them(was not quite sure before) unregistered or not I would expect them not to have horns.And if so what can be done?

 

[hillsdown]

So Seth now I am curious also; is it common in the PB angus breed to sell animals as purebred with different blood lines in them that would cause scurrs or horns?Or was Horseless kind of sold sub par animals by a so called PB breeder.If I bought pb Angus now knowing the stipulations for them(was not quite sure before) unregistered or not I would expect them not to have horns.And if so what can be done?

 

[houstoncutter]

Careful fellas,them Angus breeders are gonna ride in guns a blazing. We all know that papered Angus bloodlines have never been crossed.....lol....what you got is some real sticky mud on their head, those cant be scurs.....why the Angus folks would never allow that to happen....Good luck to you, but if those animals were papered, I would be talking to a lawyer. Its either that, are shoot the lying curr dog. One leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth and the other might get you a little jail time....What do the folks at Suprior Auction have to say

 

[MikeC]

Guy up the road from me sells Registered Black Angus bulls with horns all the time. Not scurs but horns that have been removed.

I've seen a half dozen or so come from his outfit.

I don't want to drop any names on a public forum but his ranch name begins with "HALL" and ends with "Angus". :lol:

 

[BRG]

Scurrs do occasionally pop up. These are commercial heifers, so it should not be a problem, the offspring will most likely not have any at all. I am not sure why they show up every once in a while.
But since they were sold as commercial heifers, not really that big of a deal. Now if they were horns, that would be a whole different story. You would be surprised how many cattle ranches around the country have this and do not even know it. Since I am also a sale manager, I have seen it in the past where consignors clip their heifers up for the sale, they then find little un-noticeable scur when they had a head full of hair. Then they are disgusted and pull the heifer from the sale and either turn them into a commercial cow or pound her out. But if they would not have clipped her up, they would not have known and she would have been bred and used in their program.

 

[Badlands]

If you see scurs in a Bos taurus female, it came from BOTH sides of the pedigree. One copy will produce scurs in a male, but two copies are required in a female.

Furthermore, since two copies of the genes are required in a female, and given the random assortment of genes, scurs would only present themselves in 1 out of every 4 females born to a heterozygote male and females. Therefore, if you are seeing greater than 25% scurs in these females, there was something going on. Scurs might "pop up" occasionally, but with a track record of even 25%, that implies that every dam carried a copy.

Also, one copy of the scur gene is all it takes for bulls to present scurs. If these heifers had scurs(requiring 2 copies), so did their sires!! That is a biological fact, as we understand the transmission of the scur gene at this point in time.

Scurs were naturally occuring in Angus, and were fairly well eliminated by the mid 1960's or thereabouts.


Badlands

 

[Frankie]

I bought some bred heifers from a large Angus purebred operation here in Montana last fall over superior auction. When I got them home and started working them, I noticed a couple with horns (either dehorned or scurred). I later contacted the rep. and ask about that, and he said it is not unheard of from the angus breed. Has anybody ever heard of that one????

Were they sold as "purebred" Angus or "Angus" heifers? If you're not happy with them, contact the breeder and ask for a refund. He may say no, but you never know until you ask. Scurred animals are not registerable with the American Angus Assn., but sometimes they don't show up until after the animal is registered.

 

[dun]

If you see scurs in a Bos taurus female, it came from BOTH sides of the pedigree. One copy will produce scurs in a male, but two copies are required in a female.

Furthermore, since two copies of the genes are required in a female, and given the random assortment of genes, scurs would only present themselves in 1 out of every 4 females born to a heterozygote male and females. Therefore, if you are seeing greater than 25% scurs in these females, there was something going on. Scurs might "pop up" occasionally, but with a track record of even 25%, that implies that every dam carried a copy.

Also, one copy of the scur gene is all it takes for bulls to present scurs. If these heifers had scurs(requiring 2 copies), so did their sires!! That is a biological fact, as we understand the transmission of the scur gene at this point in time.

Scurs were naturally occuring in Angus, and were fairly well eliminated by the mid 1960's or thereabouts.


Badlands

I've always wondered if there are exceptions with some crosses. Years ago we had a lot of Angus (registered) X Holstein heifers. The dairyman alwasy used bulls from one herd that had been breeding Angus at that time for around 20-30 years. None ofthe bulls had scurs or the bull calves. But every heifer had scurs. Same thing happened with the same dairy when the calves were sired by Polled Hereford bulls. I pndoered that for years and finally just laid it at the feet of sometimes strange things happen.

dun

 

[Badlands]

When you get into some crosses with horns, odd things do happen dun.

When I said "Bos taurus", I was thinking of beef, but dairy might behave differently as do Bos inducus.

That may be the case here. ;-) ;-) ;-) It would explain how a bull could NOT be scurred and his daughters could be.


"odd crosses" being the operative phrase.

Badlands

 

[dun]

When you get into some crosses with horns, odd things do happen dun.

When I said "Bos taurus", I was thinking of beef, but dairy might behave differently as do Bos inducus.

That may be the case here. ;-) ;-) ;-) It would explain how a bull could NOT be scurred and his daughters could be.


"odd crosses" being the operative phrase.

Badlands

The strange part was that none of his Holstein heifers sired by Holstein bulls were scurred. But they were dehorned so the scur bud would have been masked and or removed at dehorning so that didn;t really apply to them anyway. We raised several hundred heifers a year for him. Calves were sired by several Angus bulls from the same farm. And these were the little belt buckle sized Angus.

dun

 

[Aero]

I don't want to drop any names on a public forum but his ranch name begins with "HALL" and ends with "Angus". :lol:

you do have a cryptic way of making friends dont you?

have none of his customers noticed this flaw?

 

[MikeC]

I don't want to drop any names on a public forum but his ranch name begins with "HALL" and ends with "Angus". :lol:

you do have a cryptic way of making friends dont you?

have none of his customers noticed this flaw?

Heck, I ain't trying to make friends with this guy, sure as I did, he would be coming by to see what he could steal! :lol:

If you knew his customers, you would understand. ;-)

He sold an angus bull with a solid white stocking front leg once and swore to the guy it wasn't out of his Maine-Anjou bull. The bull he sold didn't have any white on the underside, and he told the buyer that the white spots can move around on certain bloodlines. :lol: And to prove it, he showed him a bull with a rear leg stocking. :lol:

 

[Frankie]

Is he transferring papers on these bulls?

 

[Badlands]

I took a look at a few papers again.

It looks like the jury is still out on whether homozygous bulls can show scurs or not. Some say homozygous masks scurs, some say homozygous doesn't.

So, maybe the sires wouldn't show scurs. This would be supported by duns experience.

Either way, if the daughters have them, they got them from the sire and the dam as they need two copies.

Badlands