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Horned vs. Polled

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badroute

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What is everyone's thoughts on horned or polled hereford bulls. I've noticed most purebred hereford breeders who raise horned bulls usually dont have much good to say about polled cattle.

I dont know much about them myself but my dad used to say that when they lost the horns they lost most of the good traits that made the hereford a respectable breed.

Just wonderein what everyone elses experience with them is.
 
Horned are preferred by my heifer cusomers-I'm sure there are some good polled cattle though. The best polled cow I ever saw was my buddy's old 4H heifer-I was there when we eighed off her 15 calf it was a solid 700 pounds and she wasn't a big cow at all. She spend her long productive life as a commercial cow but she probably worthy of raising a bull or so off of. He age culled her at 17 but she was back early bred again. Alot of polled cattle have gotten pretty extreme up here in the last 20 years.
 
Back in our Hereford days, we ran horned forever, then went polled. We found the polled easier to handle for the most part, and the old, 'when you knock the horns off, you knock the ass off', to be a bunch of crap. The butts on the polled bulls would match or beat any horned bull. The easiest way to knock the horns off was to go Angus, and we did! :D
 
take the horns off a Hereford bull, and you may as well take his nuts off too.

I can not stand the looks of the polled Herfs, the head is knobby, and they just lose the majestic look the horns give the bull.

I would rather spend the time dehorning at weaning time, than look at that polled bull.
 
Well, I like my polled herefords. When I'm working with a cow, I don't have to worry about her swinging her head around and catching me with a horn. I find the polled bulls calve a whole lot easier because they have a smooth head, not that triangular shaped ones the horned bulls have. And the thing about the butts and the nuts not being as good. Bull-puckey!!!! When we buy a bull, we look for a well-developed hind end. We like to see him carrying meat on his behind. Would NEVER go with a horned bull! (Of course, hubby had to go buy a horned Simm last year. Thank Lord, we've only gotten three calves off him so far! That polled hereford we had was a machine!) BTW, the Simm is being sold. Can we say "DUD"?
 
I'm kinda biased because we do raise polled cattle but I'll look at a good animal of any breed. It's interesting in the states that since they have amalgamated the two breed books a lot of breeders are using both horn and polled cattle in their breeding programs. We have used bulls with good horned genetics in their background but we do have more problems selling horned seedstock. Our customers do not want the hassle of dehorning! Right now many of the polled cattle are of the thicker, heavier muscled, middle of the road kind of cattle. It seems to me that a lot of the Horned breeders are still going for frame and a lot of these cattle are just too extreme to work at our place. We benchmark our PB's against our commercial herd of baldies and it's satisfying when our herfs sell pretty well right at the same price as our black's in the sales ring.
 
I and my father before me have raised Polled Herefords since '43. I have seen a lot of discrimination against Polleds by Horned breeders in the past. Lot of bad feelings through the Hereford merger both nationally and in Minnesota. MN is predominantly a Polled state (more so now with the dispersion of Oxley ranch) so there arent a lot of horned herds to compare to. It seems most western states are mostly horned breeders, at least the bigger herds. I've seen a lot of good horned cattle and a lot of good polled cattle. Also a lot of bad in each.
This is a good topic. I'd really like to hear what traits people feel Horned Herefords have over Polleds, and I mean proven things, not old wives tales going back to the early days of Polled Herefords when the gene pool was small.
 
I grew up with horned herford cattle, but all the cows were dehorned at birth or weaning. I currently use polled bulls, but I wouldn't be totally against using a horned bull provided he had had the right traits to offer my breeding program.

My bull customers do not want to have to work with horns on their bulls. Most of them run Angus or other polled cattle and don't have the experience nor the disire to handle horns on their cattle. In addition they don't want to have horned bulls in with their polled bulls because it is a distinct disadvantage to the polled bull for water, feed and overall social hierarchy.

If I have a bull born with horns he gets dehorned at birth. Besides, I don't want to have to work with those horns either. It takes me more time getting him into a headgate and then you either have to weight the horns or cut them. Its messy, time consumeing and dangerous. It isn't worth the extra hassle putting up with horns when I can get polled cattle to do everything the horned cattle can do.

Many of the horned breeders in my area are using more and more polled bulls and customers are buying them. In fact, many of the traditional breeders with with horned bulls are dehorning them.

The old saying that you take the horns off and you remove the brains is simply an old wise tale that gets repeated by those who aren't too wise.

I tend to focus on produceing a low maintenace trouble free cow with an emphasis on the economical traits like calving ease, weaning weights, post weaning gain, moderate sized mature weights, mothering ability, udder quality, structural correctness and carcass traits. Haveing horns on their head certainly won't help any of these traits.

I will agree though that the polled breed was too show oriented 15 or 20 years ago and that hurt them badly, but todays polled and horned cattle aren't far apart. In fact many traditional horned breeders returning from Denver admit that the polled cattle were thicker than the horned cattle. There are many polled breeders who have focused on commercial cattle production and stayed away from the show ring and have some fantastic polled bulls that could do people a lot of good.

I will agree that some of the older polled cattle with the big old head and mickey mouse ears looked pretty ugly, but there are a lot of cattle that don't have that.

Brian
 
My family has been raising horned Herefords for 80 yrs, and we are awfull proud of them. We dehorn our 2yr. olds calves at birth then dehorn everything but replacement quality bulls when we brand. I would say that out of 30 bulls I can hand feed all but 8 and those where purchased bulls. Now it's different in the spring when they come into the corrals before we turn them out. But most animals that are going into breeding are different . Once in a while we will have a heifer that is antisocial and a cow here and there that wants to eat you, but they are dehorned so it's not to bad. Grampa used to leave the horns on everything, but dad found that it gave some of the meaner cows an advantage at the feed ground. He felt it was just better for all the cows. OK that was the first thing he told me, I got a little older and learned the truth. He was spreading cake from a sack and one old horned cow thought she would speed him up a little. Scooped him up and gave him a little ride!! :) :) I would have loved to have seen that. I'm sure that there was merit to both reasons.
I feel that most of the polled bulls, although nice cattle, remind me of a red and white Angus. I do like the cleanness of their jaw line and brisket, but as for me I will stick with the horns.
 
Well we raise polled herefords so i would have to say that' is my personal preference, i just find they are easier to handle and when i'm working with cattle i would perfer to work with something that i know can't stab me with their horns, but than again that's a girl's perspective!
 
I have a neighbor who is big in the Hereford industry. more of a polled guy, but a few years ago, his brother told me they are working on creating a horned bull that throws polled calves......

never know, it just might work!
 
I love my herfies....... We have horned and we dehorn when we vaccinate in the late summer or early fall... We have tried the poll and they just didn't do well in our cross.... And in saying that. It could of been the breeding or a hundred other reasons.......
And yes run a hereford bull on your angus and you have hardly if any horns and you have that great f1 vigor.....
 
Katrina and NR, youre right, the baldies are wonderful and as far as the horns vs polled issue goes, I have sold polled bulls into herds that use horned bulls too and I would give away the pick of the bulls for anyone that can go in and tell me which calves are sired by polled bull and which are sired by horned bulls. Same goes for our own commercial cows. Its all in the phenotype and genotype of the bulls you use.



Brian
 
brian how far are you from Leola, south Dakota or Mobridge-I was down there a few years back looking at Simmental and Red Angus bulls with a couple friends. guess I need to get a passport before my next trip-but I liked the country for sure.
 
>>My bull customers do not want to have to work with horns on their bulls. Most of them run Angus or other polled cattle and don't have the experience nor the disire to handle horns on their cattle<<

If they are running angus cow and use a horned hereford bull, this will NOT be a problem. The calves will be polled. Now if they are running some mongrel "black" cows results will vary.
 

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