Stupid horn question

[haviris]

How much horn qualifies as horned?

Ok, I told you it was a stupid question, but what I mean is I've noticed some polled cattle will have bumps or nobs, where horns would be, I'm assuming it's still considered polled even w/ the nobs? So the question is how much can they have and still be polled?

And also why do some get them while others have smooth heads?

 

[wynedot55]

theres 3 kinds of cattle.theres the horned cattle.an the polled cattle.an the scurred cattle.i have horned polled an scurred cattle.you can dehorn them as soon as you feel the nubbs.

 

[haviris]

Would scurred not be dehorned that didn't get all the horn? (that is what a scur is in goats) I'm talking about cattle that haven't been dehorned.

 

[wynedot55]

scurrs are still horns.but they didnt get attached good to the skull.so they can be floppy.you can dehorn the scurrs if you want.

 

[haviris]

So a cow w/ nobs is still considered horned even though they won't grow horns? I wouldn't see a reason to dehorn a scur. So then why would some horned cattle get horns and others only get scurs?

 

[wynedot55]

because a scurred cow/bull canbe from a polled or horned cow or bull.

 

[username taken]

basically you have horned cattle, they have the squarish shaped top to the head if they've been dehorned

then you have polled cattle, they have a more pointy head

scurs in cattle are slightly different to scurs in goats. goats get scurs from improper dehorning. cattle can get scurs in the same way. but scurs can also arise just from polled cattle ... they just appear. they tend not to get as long as true horns (but I've seen a few exceptions to that rule)

the way you differentiate between a horn and a scur is if you grab it, the scur will wobble and you can move it a bit, because its not attached to the skull, whereas the horn wont move at all

 

[haviris]

I did alittle reading after this post, and I think I understand it.