# could he be polled?



## Bekahbear (Jan 15, 2014)

i had twin nubians born on 2-1-2015

we disbudded several babies last night. his sister had some nice horn buds that could be easily felt and easily seen when we shaved her head to disbud her. this guy though has no horn buds that i can find. i have been watching him since almost day 1 because i noticed that i couldnt feel hornbuds when playing with him and scratching/rubbing his head. 

his dad, Oreo, had horns. we got him when he was already a couple weeks old and his horns had just broken through the skin when we disbudded him. his mom, Cupcake, also had horns. we got her at about a month old and her horns had already broken the skin aswell when we disbudded her. so i know for a fact that both of this guys parents had horns. 

is it possible to get a baby with no horns out of 2 parents that have them? 

i shaved the little guys head last night when we were disbudding the other babies so i could get a better look at his head. i forgot to get good pics of his head before shaving it but i did get some good pics afterwords. i also noticed that his hair where his horns would be seems to be a line/fold as opposed to the swirl on the other babies. i asoattached a pic of him from about a week ago that shows the difference in his hair on his head vs his sister. 

let me know what your thoughts are. we are planning on more than likely keeping this guy and wethering him so he can keep our buck company. i dont wants horns on my goats with small children around them but i dont want to burn a baby if i dont have to so i am just keeping an eye on this guys head for now.


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## glndg (Feb 8, 2013)

Following. Since polled is dominant, theoretically he couldn't be polled, but......


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## In_Clover (Feb 28, 2013)

Was he the runt between he and his brother? My runts tend to be a lot slower to develop horn buds. It does look like the beginnings of a bud on the right, but I'm not sure. I've got polled Nigerians, and there's like a ridge of bone where the horn would have been. I would say just wait, and disbud if it comes to it. You don't want to be disbudding until the bud is big enough anyway.


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## Bekahbear (Jan 15, 2014)

He is one of twins. One boy and one girl. He is the bigger kid. You can't really tell from the picture of the 2 of them but he is visibly bigger than his sister. 

He was born on the 1st so he is over 2 weeks old. I would think he would have horn buds by now. It's weird. 

His sister had nice big horn buds when we disbudded (I could feel them on her head from day 1). Our 2-3 day old babies already have obvious horn buds when I feel their heads. Even the preemie twin does that were born on the 4th and are still tiny (they can walk underneath this guys belly) have horn buds that I can feel. I've never had one like him where I can't see or even feel horn buds.


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## Tapestry (Feb 5, 2015)

My polled doe also has bumps where horns would have been.


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## glndg (Feb 8, 2013)

Maybe he has a new mutation. He also has a very nicely shaped white arrow on his head.


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## LadySecret (Apr 20, 2013)

He's got such a smooth head. My polled goats have bumps were the horn buds would normally be. They don't look like your guy. I guess all you can do is wait and see.


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## cybercat (Oct 18, 2007)

Did he have bangs before you shaved him? Did he have the classic swirl of horns? One means polled one means horned. Polled can pop up from disbudded parents when they were wrongly disbudded. Some people disbud just out of habit or do not know how the polled looks when it shows up. But yes you can get it from two supposed horned goats.


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## KW Farms (Jun 21, 2008)

He looks polled to me. Do you have any polled bucks? Only thing I could think of is his sire is not his sire or dam is not his dam. Could there have been a kid mix up with a polled doe kidding around the same time or ?

And are you 100% sure his sire and dam had horns and weren't actually polled with scurs?

If he's actually polled and out of two horned parents, then you've just discovered a new recessive polled gene. There is only one known polled gene and it's dominant. Either sire or dam have to be polled to get a polled kid. 

He really does look polled to me...I guess just wait and see if buds come in or not. And don't wether him until you get it figured out! If he's got a new polled mutation, he'll be valuable as a buck. Keep us posted!


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## Bekahbear (Jan 15, 2014)

i was there for his birth so i know he came from Cupcake. his sister was positioned wrong and got stuck and needed help coming out so it was good that i was there for the birth.

i do not have any polled bucks or does that i know of. i only had the 2 bucks and now only have 1 since Oreo was castrated on thanksgiving. i had one buck at each property (we have our current property where we live now, and a new 10 acre property that we are getting ready to put a house up at. it will be a family compound and my parents already built their house and are living at the new property. they were watching a few of the goats for us when we had them out at the new place). Oreo was the only buck that Cupcake could have been exposed to. he is the only buck that was there. the whole 10 acre property is fenced and the goats were in a fenced pen in the middle of the fenced property so there is no way an outside goat could have gotten to her. we didnt get my other buck until Oreo and Cupcake had already moved to the other property and she didnt come home until a couple weeks before giving birth. the little buckling in question (i really need to name him) looks a lot like a cross between Oreo and his twin brother CoaCoa did as babies except that he has frosted ears like Cupcake.

Oreo was out of Mocha (my goat that i have posted in the heath section that was having pregnancy complications this year) so i am very interested to check the heads of her babies tonight when i get home and see what i find. 

both Oreo and Cupcake were disbudded very late. i hated doing it that late. it was absolutely awful for me and i never want to have to do that again. we didnt get them until they were older (Oreo was about 3 weeks and Cupcake was over a month old. i would have to look back at my records to find out exactly how old they were.) by the time the disbudding iron arrived in the mail cupcake already had decent sized horns. Oreos were much smaller but had already broken through the skin aswell. 

i attached a couple pics of Cupcake from right before disbudding. 
i dont have any good pictures of Oreo from before he was disbudded. we weren't originally planning on keeping him so i didnt bother taking any pics of him (we were going to keep his brother but a pack of coyotes had other ideas when they dug in to our property one night). the one picture i do have that shows the top of his head at all is from about a week before we picked him, Mocha, and CoaCoa up from their old owner (he is the lighter color baby). his horns hadnt broken the skin yet in the pic (you can kinda see them but not really in the pic. his brother has slightly larger horns in the pic) but Oreos had broken the skin by the time we got him. 

i was planning on keeping the new little buckling anyway. he is a real sweetie. but now i guess i will hold off on deciding to wether him or not until i know whats up with his horns (or lack there of). maybe he is just really really slow to develop them. i guess only time will tell. from day 1 i noticed he never had the swirl in his hair like the other babies ive seen. he just had a small line or fold in the hair over where horns should be.


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