How can I Ensure I Have Polled Calves?

Darrh Bullock (University of Kentucky): In order to ensure that you get all the polled calves, you need to breed to a homozygous polled bull. The way that polledness or hornedness is inherited is that the polled allele is dominant to the horned allele. So if you have calves that at least have one polled allele, you’re going to get polled calves. A homozygously polled bull only has the polled allele, so you’re ensured that you’re going to get at least one polled allele passed on to the calf crop if your bull is a homozygous polled bull. So, if you want to get polled calves, make sure that you breed to a homozygous polled bull.