Polled does?

tmfinley · #1 04/08/08, 05:34 PM

How can you tell if a goat is polled or was disbudded?

Also, if you have a polled doe and a horned buck, how can you tell if the kids are polled or horned?

I have one doe whose previous owners claim is polled and 2 others I'm not sure about.

Tiffany

Backfourty,MI. · #2 04/08/08, 07:38 PM

OK, what does polled mean?

mpete · #3 04/08/08, 07:43 PM

I have read somewhere way in the back of my head that polled goats have loose skin over their heads while dehorned have tight... won't move... I don't know if that is true or not...
Backfourty.. polled is naturally hornless

Beulah Gardens · #4 04/08/08, 07:48 PM

You can tell if the kids are polled by looking where the horns should be if the hair is a swirl then there are horns underneath, if you rub the swirl you will feel little bumps under the skin, if the goat is naturally polled the hair will be straight and when touched it just feels like a goat head. *s* I would not keep a naturally polled buck they tend to create trouble in their off spring but I have a doe that in polled and I love her and the kids she throws. hope that makes sense.

Backfourty,MI. · #5 04/08/08, 07:57 PM

Hey, I have one of those polled goats! A doe & mine's a real sweetie too, she's due next week(ND) but my buck in not polled, so will her kids be polled too?
Beulah, what kind of trouble does a polled buck cause in their offspring? Seems since everyone always want's to disbud their kids, polled would be better because they don't have to burn them?

Beulah Gardens · #6 04/08/08, 08:06 PM

Mostly it is if you breed two polled goats together, but it can happen with just the male, they throw intersex kids ( both male and female parts) or they will look normal as far as parts go but be sterile. I know for cows it worked and worked really well ~breeding for naturally polled but it just doesn't seem to be working out the same for goats........I wish it would, I HATE to burn horns. My polled doe throws both polled and horned kids but neither of my bucks are naturally polled.

Backfourty,MI. · #7 04/08/08, 08:20 PM

OK then, I'm wishing really hard for polled doelings next week!
Thanks tmfinley, for letting me take cuts on your thread.

sungirl · #8 04/08/08, 10:16 PM

If they have papers it will say they are polled.

dosthouhavemilk · #9 04/09/08, 08:58 AM

We have a 3 year old naturally polled purebred registered Nubian buck. I brought him home at a week old. He is heterozygously polled. His sire was polled and his dam was disbudded. So he carries a gene for both.
I love having a naturally polled buck around...most of the time. lol He is sooo very laid back and such a sweetheart. Everyone says the same when they use him.
Now, I did learn my lesson last year. It takes me awhile to learn my lesson with my boys. They always talk me into to trusting them when I really shouldn't. Rudy got out and bred his polled daughter last summer. The odds of getting a hermaphrodite out of such a breeding is...well, it needs to be a homozygously polled female... The doe gave birth to a singleton. A female...well, almost a female. A polled "female" that ended up being a hermaphrodite. Unfortunately, "she" was smothered at a month old in a kid pile.
Beyond that, no intersexed offspring from Rudy...just lots of beautiful daughters in the herd, five of them naturally polled that have freshened. He has some other naturally polled daughters as well. 32 kids his first two years as a father. I have not updated his section with this years kids but we've had about 9-10 polled so far (with some DOAs or FTDs I never checked for polled status).
The problem with some naturally polled goats is they get bumps, that are mistakened for horns and burned. So a number of polled goats actually end up being disbudded. I know, our first year a couple of kids I thought fopr srue were polled were then burned by the person disbudding our kids. We had only ended up with one polled offspring that year...not near the 50% you are supposed to see when using a polled animal (polled is dominant). The next year and this year, we've run closer to that 50% now that I determine who gets burned and when.
Breeding polled to polled does not always create hermaphrodites, but it can increase the chances. There are a number of dairy breeders who have polled herds and routinely breed polled to polled with very few hermaphrodites. Most hermaphrodites are found in horned to horned breedings from what people have said.
Rudy gets to stick around another Fall, and then I may be selling him simply due to having so many daughters out of him.
http://www.freewebs.com/morningmistherd/breedingbucks.htm#62835448

mary,tx · #10 04/09/08, 09:51 AM

I also burned the head of my first polled doeling. It actually was a few years later, when I suddenly recognized the polled trait in her offspring that I realized what I'd done.

Since polled is a dominant trait, you can expect to see half of the offspring be polled in a polled to horned breeding.

Look for straight hair instead of swirls where the horns would be on your newborns. A polled animal may still have bumps.

mary

tmfinley · #11 04/09/08, 09:53 AM

How do you determine who gets disbudded?

I just went out rubbing everyone's heads trying to figure out who is polled and who is not. They got a little put out with me! The doeling who I was told is polled has 2 almost pointy nubbies under the skin. How do I tell the difference btwn that and buds on kids? The 2 does that I'm not sure about have bumps where horns might or might not have been.

I tried to see if they had loose skin over their heads rather than non movable skin and it wasn't very helpful. Everyone kind of felt the same.

I really don't want to disbud any kids these does have if I don't have to.

Tiffany

RiverPines · #12 04/09/08, 10:04 AM

I breed polled goats.

You can not always tell by the hair! Some polled goats have the 2 swirls as if horns will grow. I have some now that look like they will grow horns but they are 3 months old and no horns through the skin.

Also, some will have bumps that grow a little but it takes time to know if the bumps will ever break the skin.
I had a billy with a little less than 1/2 inch bumps that never broke skin and he was full grown so it was obvious he was polled.

What I can tell is horned kids...by the latest of 8 weeks old they have broke the skin with their little horn tips. The ones that have no horn through the skin at 9 weeks always is polled.

I dont disbud so I dont have to worry about knowing sooner, for sure, who is polled or not.

Some are easy to tell at an early age, some are not.

I also have had horned kids that had no swirl! The hair isnt a reliable way to know. I learned time is the best way.

jBlaze · #13 04/09/08, 10:18 AM

Some breeders will "dis-bud" polled animals and regester them as dis-budded, even though they are polled. Looking at them afterward, I doubt you could tell they were not horned, as the dis-budding procedure would look the same as on a goat that did have horn buds. They do this because most people do not want polled, for fear of problems. Other people want polled goats, or are not concerned.
So, do not always believe, as with most things.

tmfinley · #14 04/09/08, 10:24 AM

Well jBlaze, that wasn't very helpful.

You are right, everything is a wait and see for myself with these goats.

RiverPines, what do you recommend I do with the kids when the polled doe has them?

Tiffany

dosthouhavemilk · #15 04/09/08, 01:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmfinley

How do you determine who gets disbudded?

I just went out rubbing everyone's heads trying to figure out who is polled and who is not. They got a little put out with me! The doeling who I was told is polled has 2 almost pointy nubbies under the skin. How do I tell the difference btwn that and buds on kids? The 2 does that I'm not sure about have bumps where horns might or might not have been.

I tried to see if they had loose skin over their heads rather than non movable skin and it wasn't very helpful. Everyone kind of felt the same.

I really don't want to disbud any kids these does have if I don't have to.

Tiffany

How old are these goats?
I check the kids at birth. I feel their heads. Usually I can get a good idea at that point and then I keep an eye on their horn development or lack thereof. When I burn kids, I recheck the kids I think could be plled. If I do not feel horns points, I don't burn. I check them again a week later. By about a month of age it is obvious if they are going to grow horns or not. The bumps are smooth on top and not pointy. Points normally indicates horns will break through.
I sold a buckling born in early March. He left last Thursday. Their dam was exposed to both of our Nubian bucks. When he and his twin brother were born they looked like they would be polled. Neither has been burned. This kid has the bumps but nothing has broke through and there are no horn tips to be felt.

On mature goats, it is not near as obvious. My buck and most of his heterozygously polled daughters have bumps where the horns would have been. The disbudded goats do not have these bumps for the most part. There is a doe I purchased last spring who I suspect could be polled. If she drops polled kids with my Boer buck I won't be surprised.
I'm used to calves and polled genetics, so switching to goats with polled hasn't been to difficult when trying to tell at birth.
We had a polled Boer cross buck back in 2003 that we used for breeding for two years. So Rudy is our second polled buck.

RiverPines · #16 04/09/08, 01:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmfinley

Well jBlaze, that wasn't very helpful.

You are right, everything is a wait and see for myself with these goats.

RiverPines, what do you recommend I do with the kids when the polled doe has them?

Tiffany

?

I dont understand what you are asking.

I have both horned and polled goats, all together, and dont disbud. So any question on disbudding is out of my league since I dont do it.

tmfinley · #17 04/09/08, 02:16 PM

Thank you, dosthouhavemilk! That was good info. I don't have kids yet, first round will be next week. Just trying to prepare for it now.

Thanks again,
Tiffany

jBlaze · #18 04/09/08, 05:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmfinley

Well jBlaze, that wasn't very helpful.

You are right, everything is a wait and see for myself with these goats.

Tiffany

Well, I suppose I thought you were asking how to tell on a purchased animal. If it is your own kids you can usually feel the difference. I cannot explain how, but it just feels different. Sorry to be such a non helper, lol

Beulah Gardens · #19 04/09/08, 09:06 PM

That is good info Roseanna, I am glad to hear that you are not having trouble w/ them. Every time the subject comes up around other breeders here~ you get the eye roll and the troubled tales start pouring out.....so I decided it wasn't even something I was interested in playing with~ too much can go wrong on it's own I don't want to take chances but it is good to hear it can work.

AmericanGoatGrl · #20 04/10/08, 09:47 AM

You can tell which goats are polled quite easily by looking at the shape of the head, and the location of where the horns would be. Straight hair without a swirl is one of the first clues. Another clue is to feel the head and if you feel a smooth surface (a week after the kid is born) it is most likely polled. I have not found that the skin is loose or tight when a goat is polled or not. I just look at the shape of the head and the pattern of the hair. As far as telling whether a goat was disbudded or not, you should be able to part the hair and see a scar. Also the shape of the head will indicate it was disbudded.

You can always post pictures to somebody who raises polled goats. I raise both polled Nubians and Boers.