Dehorning practices have certainly become more humane over the years, but it is still an unpleasant task. Whether you use dehorning paste soon after the birth of a calf or a hot iron dehorner before that calf is three months of age, the task does
cost dairies time and money. Dairies enrolled in the Farmers Assuring Responsible Management (FARM) program are required to use pain management practices to alleviate the pain and stress a calf experiences from horn bud removal. I have seen publications
estimate that dehorning costs a dairy as much as $5 to $25 per calf. If dehorning stress interrupts the calf’s growth and health cycle, those costs could be much higher.
In dairy markets around the world, especially in Europe, there is a high demand for Polled genetics. The demand is in part due to consumer pressure concerning animal welfare. If you can market some or all of your herd’s milk through on-farm processing, then creating a Polled herd may allow you to capture a premium for that product. Over the past few years, we have seen a number of global food companies adopting policy statements encouraging the use of Polled genetics in the herds from which they source their milk.
The Polled gene is dominant, meaning if at least one parent contributes the Polled allele to its offspring, the resulting calf will be hornless. However, throughout history, breeders saw the Polled trait as a novel trait because dollars would be sacrificed
when compared to the superior production and health traits that the horned population was able to contribute. Select Sires has worked closely with the industry’s most elite breeders to close the gap between the Polled and horned population.
Select Sires’
NxGEN® lineup offers the highest genetic merit sires that will create the
most profitable next generation of Holsteins. The difference between the horned NxGEN sires and the Polled NxGEN sires is currently less than +100
Herd Health Profit Dollars® (HHP$®).
When you consider dehorning costs and the potential added value Polled genetics can offer your future milk markets, now is certainly the time to consider adding a Polled genetic component to your overall breeding program.
Strategies for incorporating Polled genetics into your herd:
- Only use gender SELECTED™ semen when using Polled sires.
The use of sexed semen is common practice now on many farms, but you certainly can’t waste opportunities to grow your Polled herd by making Polled Holstein bull calves.
- Consider genomic testing your heifer calves, including receiving the Polled gene test to confirm if your calf is indeed Polled. Current CDCB haplotype calls for Polled are not 100% accurate and require gene testing confirmation. Keep
accurate records of which calves are confirmed Polled.
- Train your maternity and calf employees to feel for horn buds. These are already highly skilled people, but if you are truly going to capture the cost savings of using Polled genetics, they need to identify these Polled calves instead
of continuing to perform dehorning measures on every calf born.
- Work with your Select Sires genetic advisor to identify Polled sires that rank high for the indexes or traits that are important to your farm. Whether its NxGEN, GForce™ or daughter-proven, each lineup offers high-ranking Polled
sires for desired indexes, valuable production, health and conformation traits.
- Consider adding one PP (homozygous Polled) sire to your program. PP sires will create 100% hornless calves. Yes, this can mean lowering your genetic benchmarks for one generation, but cattle breeding is a long-term investment and
finding a balanced PP bull is the fastest way to dehorn your herd. This can also allow you to use a high genetic horned sire on Polled females to add diversity of pedigree to your herd and create high genetic Polled calves in the future.