I have a month old doeling that has not been de-horned yet. Today I noticed that her horn tips (about 3/4 inch long) are flat, like they've been squeezed flat (not lying flat on her head), and they can be wiggled like a loose tooth. Whats going on with them? I have alot of goats and I've never seen anything like this. Any ideas?

-- Julie (juliecapasso@aol.com), March 03, 2000

Answers

Julie; Your goat has received an incomplete polling gene. What she has inplace of horns are called scurs, they are evidence of partial horn, partial polling. If you dehorn with a hot dehorning iron, she will look normal. Since she is carrying a polling gene, don't breed her with a polled buck. Because her polling gene is incomplete, she would have a 50% chance of producing does with hermaphroditism (both sexes). If both parents are polled, all female offspring will be hermaphrodites, male offspring are unaffected. If you don't dehorn her she will probably have recurring problems with her scur caps breaking off. This seems to be painfull and leaves an opening for infection. The same thing that happens to a goat that hasn't been dehorned properly, you've no doubt seen those little scur looking regrowths before. Hope this helps. Randy Henry (JaRaCo)

-- Randy Henry (JaRaCo) (JaRaCoRanch@aol.com), March 05, 2000.

Also, sometimes when a scur gets knocked off it bleeds badly. So it's good to get them off now, before they get any bigger.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), April 13, 2000.