# Polled homozygous



## Scooby308 (Mar 16, 2014)

Are there any breeders shooting for breeding polled homozygous Nigerian Dwarfs?  I called 3 farms in KY today and they had no clue as to what I was talking about. And they claim their goats are registerable but they don't follow genetics? 

Just curious if any of you are shooting for this.


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## taylorm17 (Mar 16, 2014)

I would like some polled goats, but don't have and am okay with just disbudded.

http://nigeriandwarfcolors.weebly.com/polledhorned-genetics.html


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## Scooby308 (Mar 16, 2014)

I posted the same link in Southerns post! Lol. Looks like I'm not the only one doing research. Lol


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## Southern by choice (Mar 16, 2014)

We are, both with our registered and unregistered goats.


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## taylorm17 (Mar 16, 2014)

yeah I saw that website earlier and thought I would post It here.


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## animalmom (Mar 29, 2014)

I don't think I understand what you are trying to do... are you wanting to breed homozygous polled to homozygous polled?

Please keep in mind I'm not questioning your genetic desires.  I thought if you bred PP to PP you would run a 25% chance of getting a hermaphrodite which would not be so good.

I'm a huge fan of polled goats and would not have a problem breeding a PP to a horned/disbudded goat but I have avoided breeding my polled doe to my polled buck... am I wrong?  I know for certain right now that my polled animals are Ph.  How would you know if you came up with a PP?  I am intrigued!


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## jodief100 (Mar 29, 2014)

There is a reason no one tries to breed for polled homozygous in goats.  It is not a good idea. 

The hermaphrodite gene resides very close to the polled gene on the loci  Polled is dominant, you only need a single gene for it to present in the phenotype.  Hermaphroditism is recessive, you need 2 genes for it to present. 

Since the two genes are so close on the loci, they tend to be passed along together.  With a polled heterozygous goat, you get polled and maybe a single hermaphrodite gene.  With homozygous polled you get polled and a very good likelihood of two hermaphrodite genes, so the goat will be a hermaphrodite. 

It is possible in theory to breed for homozygous polled, if you only breed polled goats without the hermaphrodite gene. It would take genetically testing every goat.   Then what do you do with them?  You could only breed them with other genetically tested polled goats.



animalmom said:


> Please keep in mind I'm not questioning your genetic desires.  I thought if you bred PP to PP you would run a 25% chance of getting a hermaphrodite which would not be so good.



The 25% comes from breeding heterozygous polled to heterozygous polled. 
The punnet square is like this:
P=Polled gene, if a single gene is present the goat is polled but carries the horned gene
H=Horned gene, must have two horned genes for the goat to have horns
m=hermaphrodite gene (frequently is present with the polled gene)
.......H.....Pm
H.....HH....HPm
Pm...HPm..PmPm

So breeding heterozygous polled to heterozygous polled with both polled goats carrying the hermaphrodite gene gives you:  25% horned goats, 50% heterozygous polled goats and 25% homozygous polled goats, which are probably hermaphrodites. 

Female hermaphrodites cannot produce offspring so that would be easy to eliminate the hermaphrodite gene on that side.  Hermaphrodite males are fertile, though marginally so.  Eliminating the hermaphrodite gene solely on phenotype would be difficult if not impossible.


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## cybercat (Mar 31, 2014)

Actually there are more hermaphrodite from horned to horned breeding than polled to polled breeding.  Polled is just a dominate trait.  There is a yahoo group on polled and a facebook group. They have alot of the stidy information on them about polled goats.


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