Polledness

Background

Improvement in animal welfare and thus customer satisfaction but also substantial economic benefits advocate for breeding of naturally polled animals. The horn phenotype has been mapped to several sites in the bovine genome depending on the origin of today’s cattle breeds. Our test serves the common European breeds that are of the Friesian (such as Holstein-Friesian and Jersey) and the Celtic (dual-purpose und beef cattle breeds) type. The genetic basis for polledness is dominantly inherited making heterozygous animals (P/p) polled. Horned animals are homozygous p/p.

Service

Knowledge of past breeding heritage can be blurred. Our test determines polledness for cattle of both Friesian and Celtic origin. We accept all common tissue sample types such as EDTA blood, hair roots from the far tail end, buccal swaps, ear punch samples, and semen.