setting the record straight - polled fullblood maines

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xxcc

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Apr 21, 2007
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Sun River, MT
ok, in regard to a topic a few pages back discussing my fullblood maines and those of other breeders, here's what i know:

- the polled gene in north american fullblood Maine-Anjou cattle is the result of gene mutations.  i am not sure where they occured (lineage wise).

- there are two foundational 'polled' bloodlines... The Count line and the Twin Valley line.  The Count line actually came from his dam, PK's Lady 9K.  There were two prominent bulls that I know of in that line PK's Pld 'The Count' 53S and PK's Unix 102X.  there were also PK's Pld Invader and PK's Smoothy, plus maybe one or two more.  In the Twin Valley line I know of two polled cows, one more prolific than the other, Ms Twin Valley Elite 130N and Ms Twin Valley Elite 150N.  150N was more prolific, probably had more to do with actual quality of progeny.  to my knowledge those are the only two foundational lines of fullblood Maine-Anjou that are polled.

- the AMAA database is incorrect in the number of fullbloods they list as polled and is extremely unreliable.  all fullbloods should be assumed horned unless there parentage points to the two above mentioned lines.

- the CMAA has a bylaw addressing polled mutations.  any "polled" animal that "shows up" must have it's skull x-rayed numerous times throughout it's young stages of growth.  some of you may know that all Canadian fullbloods have to be parentage verified.  this eliminates the question of any fullblood being polled due to a "polled non-fullblood" in the wood pile.

- there is a strain of cattle that is indicated to be polled tracing to a FCF Dana 1114D whom is indicated to be scurred.  I don't know a lot about the cow, but she may be a mutation as she is double Cunia and I know Cunia, Cunic, Etula and Epinal have soft horning genes (from experience breeding) and are prone to polling.

My personal opinion is that as we understand the horning gene more now, tying it to the scur gene on paper designation is pointless as the scur gene and the horn gene are somewhat independent, yes they are tied a little bit, but because some animal has scurs does not mean it is more prone to grow horns.


follow up notes - Coca Cola's mother is not polled, nor are many of the old, old maine-anjou imports.  as i said, the above indicated animals are the foundation of polled fullbloods in North America.  There are no polled fullbloods in France.
 

red

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Jan 20, 2007
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thanks Mike! It was just a little confusing. I'm glad you cleared it up for me.

Red
 

knabe

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i know i put this in another post, but the polling gene is supposedly the last gene on the end of chromosome 1.
the end of chromosomes are more susceptible than other areas to mutation.
from the few papers i have read on this gene, it has several markers mapped to it.
i think one will find that when a genetic test comes out, there will be more than the normal amount of variation within the gene, both for horned and polled.
if the gene is used in some other proteins, i can see why some polled mutations may have given rise to polled cattle not "performing" as well as horned.
one of my teachers at cal poly used to think the polled gene was linked to relaxed prepuces
one paper mentioned that older bulls can give polled offspring where they gave horned before.


http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/an_sci/extension/animal/news/aug96/aug96-3.html
http://publish.csiro.au/view/journals/dsp_journal_fulltext.cfm?nid=40&f=AR06044
http://publish.csiro.au/view/journals/dsp_journal_fulltext.cfm?nid=40&f=AR06044#R49


http://www.jwest.biz/AncientBreedHistory.htm          this link has an awesome color pattern in a calf



 

knabe

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Hollister, CA
wasn't aware there was a dna test for polled yet.

http://www.metamorphixinc.com/faqtrupolled.html

Breeders can expect inconclusive results for 10 to 15 percent of the
animals tested. An inconclusive result means that even though the
sample was satisfactory and the lab was able to generate DNA marker
genotypes, these genotypes weren’t able to detect differences between
the animal’s horned or polled genes.


this may be because polledness genotypes are not fully catergorized yet, and there is diversity of point mutations or insertions deletions that haven't been validated yet.mmi if


MMI is a spin off of celera
 

Joe Boy

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Jan 31, 2007
Messages
692
Mike,
Thanks.  I was very confused by what the AMAA has listed on some of the older dams and bulls.

Glad you made it home.  Hope all is safe and wanted you to know that 742 has settled down and is doing very well.  I weighed him on the 4th and he weighed 920 empty.  He is on wheat hay, millet hay and 12% creep with some corn.  He did not like me much until the past week.  Now he follows me just like all the others do.  I wormed him as he went to really scratching and was losing his hair.  It has been warm and windy here.

Again, thanks for the information and I really enjoyed meeting you and your dad and lovely lady.  Hope the kids were glad to see all of you.
 
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