# Is she is (horned) or is she ain't (polled)



## animalmom (May 1, 2011)

I apologize if this has been asked far too many times, but I need a bit of assistance with my new Nigerian Dwarf kids heads.

I have seven babes right now, and can feel pointy horn buds on two, maybe three, but on the others it is more a wider bump.  I've tried my best to look for swirl or no swirl, but I can't see swirls.  All I know is two or three have pointy, thinner bumps and the others have wider not pointy bumps.

So are the pointy ones horn buds and the much more rounded ones polled?  I would feel terrible putting a little polled darling through a needless disbudding.

Did this make sense to anyone?  Have disbudding iron, will burn... just being cautious (nah I'm down right chicken).


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## SDGsoap&dairy (May 1, 2011)

I don't have any polled goats for comparison, but my horned babies aren't pointy when I disbud them.  It's just a small rounded bump, like a big pimple.  How old are the kids?


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## rrhall (May 1, 2011)

You really want to find out if they are polled,because it is not good practice to breed polled with polled.We have five polled goats right now,and if it runs in their genes we keep an closer eye on their kids when they are born.You are correct you will feel pointy horns (buds) on the ones that will have horns and if they are polled, they will not have them.You will be able to tell,it also seems like the bucklings seem to develop their points earlier then the doelings,so keep this in mind when you check them.Normally by a week you will have a really good idea if they are going to be polled.It is also a good practice to have two people check them out,the one who feeds them every day and is around them every day might not notice because they are with them all the time,and checking them every day,another fresh set of eyes help.We were very nervous making the call the first time,but trust me you will be able to tell.

We were very nervous this year with one of are doelings,because we thought no way she would be polled but she did end up being polled and we were really excited about it.







Baby Ruth is a purebred,black and polled Oberhasli doe,we were very excited about Almond Joy having her this year.

Trust me,you will be able to tell.







			
				animalmom said:
			
		

> I apologize if this has been asked far too many times, but I need a bit of assistance with my new Nigerian Dwarf kids heads.
> 
> I have seven babes right now, and can feel pointy horn buds on two, maybe three, but on the others it is more a wider bump.  I've tried my best to look for swirl or no swirl, but I can't see swirls.  All I know is two or three have pointy, thinner bumps and the others have wider not pointy bumps.
> 
> ...


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## animalmom (May 1, 2011)

I have seven kids, 3 are 3 weeks old, 2 are 2 weeks old, and 2 are 1 week old.  The three week old ones are two bucks and a doe.  The doe has pointy bumps and the bucks have bumps but the  bumps are much broader/wider and are not pointy.  Their sire is polled. 

The 2 week olds are a buck and a doe.  Since neither parent is polled then there isn't much chance that either will be polled, right?  Their bumps are barely feel-able.

The 1 week olds are twin does and again neither parent is polled so they should have horn buds.  

The polled gene is dominant isn't it?  Being dominant doesn't mean that a polled animal can't pass on the horn gene.  Right???  High School biology was a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

So, it looks like I should anticipate both the 2 week olds and the 1 week olds to end up horned, and just deal with it... right?

Love my goaties to the max, but sometime they make my head hurt.


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## St0rmyM00n (May 3, 2011)

Do we have close up pictures to show what this is?

My new buck has circle like knobs on his head now like a button bump

I don't understand what the difference is.


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## jessica117 (May 4, 2011)

With my nigis, my bucks have had more rounded but bigger around bumps when their buds are comming in, while the girls have smaller but very pointy ones, and they all grew into horns.  We have no polling in our lines though.

ETA:  genes come in pairs, one set from the sire and the other from the dam.  It all depends on whether you sire has polledolled (which is unlikely since you aren't supposed to breed polled to polled) or polled:horned.  Since your dam has/had horns she would have passed horned as one side and you have a 50/50 chance of the sire passing polled.  Hope that made sense


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## Chirpy (May 4, 2011)

Try this link for a pretty easy to understand explanation:  http://www.americangoatsociety.com/education/polled_genetics.php


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## BW&RAO (May 5, 2011)

Hey there I am a newbie who might get goats one day and I was wondering why you wouldn't want to breed polled to polled? It would seem better not to have to A) disbud which everyone says is no fun for human and goat, or B) have an acident waiting to happen. What is there a bad defect on the line up or what??? Thanks, and I hope that you don't see this as hijacking as it was not the intent...


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## elevan (May 5, 2011)

BW&RAO said:
			
		

> Hey there I am a newbie who might get goats one day and I was wondering why you wouldn't want to breed polled to polled? It would seem better not to have to A) disbud which everyone says is no fun for human and goat, or B) have an acident waiting to happen. What is there a bad defect on the line up or what??? Thanks, and I hope that you don't see this as hijacking as it was not the intent...


_If you breed a polled animal to another polled animal the resulting offspring will possibly be neither he nor she or it could actually be both (hermaphrodites = girl parts and boy parts) and it may be sterile and sometimes they don't live._  This is what I've been told.  I have no experience with polled goats.

Here are some additional quotes for you that may be helpful:



> Yes you can breed polled to polled. There are two types of polled, heterozygous, and homozygous(sp?), the homo-homo polled breeding is where you have a 25%chance of throwing a hermie. With hetero-homo(a difference of Pp and PP) you don't have that problem.You can tell at birth which one is Pp or PP if you don't know anything about the parents. PP have smooth polls, and Pp with have bump where the horns should be. P=Polled p=horned


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> There is a 1 in 8 chance that you will get an hermaphrodite on a polled to polled breeding. That is the total risk. There is some evidence to suggest that at least in Nubians polled does are more productive of kids and milk. That is from Goat Medicine by Mary SmithDVM


eta:


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## BW&RAO (May 5, 2011)

Thanks for the quick response... No wonder people don't do polled to polled...


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## sunfisher (May 5, 2011)

Thank you BW&RAO for asking that question I was wondering myself. And thanks elevan for clearing it up.


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