HORNS??

[copperhead]

I bred a polled bull to a polled cow and today I got a horned baby, I thought I had a lock on polled, how did this happen?

[kansasdexters]

It only takes one polled gene in the gene pair to make a heterozygous polled cow or bull. That means that the other gene in the gene pair is a horn gene. So when you breed a heterozygous polled cow to a heterozygous polled bull, then you have a 25% probability of producing homozygous horned, a 50% probability of heterozygous polled, and a 25% probability of homozygous polled.

Homozygous polled cattle will always produce polled offspring, but heterozygous polled cattle can produce either horned or polled. That's why homozygous polled cattle are coveted by breeders that want to predictably produce only polled offspring.

Patti

[copperhead]

OK, thanks for the lesson, just another one learned at the caspable hands of my Dexter friends