What is the poll on a cow?
The poll is a name of the part of an animal's head, alternatively referencing a point immediately behind or right between the ears.
EPDs defined
For example, if Bull A has a birthweight EPD of +9.0 lbs and Bull B has a birthweight EPD of +3.0 lbs, this means that Bull A's calves will have birthweights that are 6 lbs heavier than whatever the birthweight of Bull B's calves are, on average.
Polled livestock are preferred by many farmers for a variety of reasons, the foremost being that horns can pose a physical danger to humans, other livestock and equipment. Horns may also interfere with equipment used with livestock (such as a cattle crush), or they may become damaged during handling.
Polled cattle breeds have been selectively bred to lack horns. Polledness is a dominant trait: all offspring of a bull with 2 copies of a polled-associated mutation will be polled themselves.
To cut hair from the head. Neither shall they shave their heads, nor suffer their locks to grow long; they shall only POLL their heads. ( Ezekiel 44:20 ) Source: A King James Dictionary. (
Research has shown it's cheaper to breed polled cattle than to dehorn cows, but experts say the dairy industry has been slow to expand polled genetics because it's been focused on boosting milk productivity.
If the bulls used on first-calf heifers have averaged a +6 for the CED EPD for several years and you have yet to pull a calf, then a +6 CED bull is a safe option.
Expected Progeny Difference (EPD) , is the prediction of how future progeny of each animal are expected to perform relative to the progeny of other animals listed in the database. EPDs are expressed in units of measure for the trait, plus or minus.
Marbling — Calves from Bull A should have a . 3 higher marbling score. Marbling scores range from 1.0, which is devoid of marbling and a utility quality grade to 10.9, which is abundant marbling and a prime + quality grade.
Dehorning significantly decreases the risk of injury to farm workers, horses, dogs and other cattle. Dehorned animals are far easier to handle and transport, and command higher prices at auction than animals with horns.
How do you tell if a cow is polled?
Polled cattle have absolutely no horns, nor scurs nor bare spaces where a pair of horns may have been, whatsoever. The best way to tell is if a cow, bull, steer or heifer is polled is by looking at the poll, itself located just above and between the ears.
Four benefits of a polled herd
Creating more value by reducing meat bruising, hide damage and labour requirements associated with animal husbandry practices. Increasing production – studies show that after an animal has been dehorned, it will often lose or struggle to gain weight.

poll verb [T] (OPINION)
to ask a person for their opinion as part of a general study of what people think about a subject: Half the people polled said they would pay more for environmentally friendly food.
[slang] Getting robbed; getting ripe-off; getting mugged.
History. The word "poll" means "scalp" or "head". When votes were taken by gathering people together and counting heads, the place where this was done (sometimes an open field) was called the "polls". Polling places used to gather and count ballots in elections have changed significantly over the past 250 years.
Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence intervals. A person who conducts polls is referred to as a pollster.
predestination, in Christianity, the doctrine that God has eternally chosen those whom he intends to save.
Ranchers use donkeys to protect herds from predators.
Even though corn can be fed whole with satisfactory results, cracking or rolling prior to feeding will increase digestibility by 5 to 10 percent. In most instances, grinding or rolling corn will not markedly improve average daily gain, but proper processing will improve feed conversion efficiency.
Polledness is a genetic mutation that causes animals within a horned cattle breed to not develop horns.
Which cattle EPD is most important?
MATERNAL TRAITS
The two important maternal EPD traits I look at are 1) Maternal Calving Ease and 2) Milk.
Ideally select a high reliability bull with a beef heifer calving difficulty figure of less than 7.5%. Heifers that calved for the 1st time at 23-26 month had greater survivability.
EPDs have been estimated to be over seven times more reliable than adjusted weight records, ratios, and visual appraisal. Even on young bulls with relatively low accuracy values, EPDs are our most objective indicator of the animal's genetic merit.
EPD Traits
All of the breed associations that have EPD report four traits: Birth Weight — in pounds at birth, excluding maternal influence. Birth weight is the most important factor in Direct Calving Ease (see below).
Most of your older bulls will be the ones with the lower numbers, but I would say that in many environments a +14 milk epd in an angus cow may be ideal.
Estimated Progeny Differences (EPDs) are generated on individuals to compare breeding values and help make breeding decisions. Emphasis is generally placed on sires because an individual sire can have many more offspring than an individual dam.
Galloway cattle had the greatest (P < 0.05) number and the most regular (P < 0.05) distribution of the marbling flecks in young animals. Furthermore, for marbling characteristics in Holstein-Friesian animals, a great number and slightly finer structure were observed compared with the other breeds investigated.
The combination of higher grain and protein in diets will lead to more marbling. Marbling fat develops at a young age in beef cattle. Feeding higher energy feeds to young calves will help increase the amount of marbling. Creep feeding is the easiest way to do this as shown by research from the University of Georgia.
Dehorning and disbudding are painful practices that are routinely performed in cattle to facilitate handling. In order to reduce the pain caused by such procedures, a combination of local anaesthesia and systemic analgesia with an NSAID (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug) is recommended.
A study conducted by Kansas State University researchers suggests horn tipping is the best compromise for managing cattle with horns in feedlots. When comparing methods for dehorning, tipping horns resulted in the least amount of observable pain.
Why do they put rope through cows nose?
Anti-suckling devices such as nose rings or nose flaps are designed to wean calves off milk by preventing access to the cow's udder while the cow and calf are still together. A nose ring is a metal or plastic ring with spiked extensions. The nose ring clamps onto (rather than pierces) the septum.
So, if a bull has scurs, he can be either heterozygous (Ss) or homozygous (SS), and if a female has scurs, she must be homozygous (SS). Cows that are Ss will be smooth polled. Scurs can only be seen in polled cattle because horned cattle hide the scurred gene.
Polling is the process of breeding animals without horns from a breed that traditionally have ancestry with horns.
Angus is the name of a specific breed of beef cattle. These are relatively small, well-muscled cattle that are naturally polled (hornless) and either solid black or solid red colored. The Angus breed started in Scotland, and the first of these cows came to the USA in the late 1870s.
Polled sheep are easier to handle and manage, and there is no need to regularly dehorn weaners, which reduces the on-farm workload. Injuries caused by fights between rams are also largely eliminated.
For example, male and female cattle (including the many wild versions such as the African Cape Buffalo) and wildebeest (a kind of antelope) have horns, while in most other bovids only the males have horns.
If the horn is missing, it is called polled. In some cattle breeds, the polled gene has been a part of the breeding program for many years; hence, many of the animals in the breed are polled.
Description. Polling is the process where the computer or controlling device waits for an external device to check for its readiness or state, often with low-level hardware. For example, when a printer is connected via a parallel port, the computer waits until the printer has received the next character.
ballot. nounvoting; recording of vote. election. franchise. plebiscite.
In electronic communication, 'polling' is the continuous checking of other programs or devices by one progam or device to see what state they are in, usually to see whether they are still connected or want to communicate.
What breed of cattle has the best meat?
- Angus.
- Hereford.
- Gelbvieh.
- Limousin.
- Simmental.
History. The origin of the Hereford has been lost over time but it is generally agreed that it was founded on the draught ox descended from the small red cattle of Roman Briton and from a large Welsh breed once numerous along the border of England and Wales.
They are naturally polled (without horns). Red Poll cattle are mainly used as beef suckler cows, although a few dairy herds are found in England, as well as in the United States in the state of Texas. They are known for easy calving and successfully rearing a high proportion of their calves.
Just remember if you are talking about an object, you want to use pole, with an e at the end. If you are talking about voting or gathKyleg opinions, whether it is a verb or a noun, you want poll.
to use profanity; curse; swear.
A “polled” goat (of any breed) is one that is naturally born without horns. Almond Joy in the first large picture below is polled while her sister Toffee in the second large picture below is not. You can see a small blackened area on Toffee's head where her horn buds have been burned off (a process called disbudding).
Polling is the process of breeding animals without horns from a breed that traditionally have ancestry with horns. Due to the low rate of naturally occurring polled animals; this is typically done by crossing in genetics from a naturally polled breed such as the Aberdeen Angus.
Characteristics. Red Poll cattle are a deep red colour with good eye and udder pigmentation (avoids sunburn)and naturally polled. They are medium size (similar to all British breeds) with strong legs and good walking ability.
Description: Angus cattle are naturally polled (meaning they do not grow horns) and solid black, although white may appear on the udder. Black Angus are the most popular beef breed of cattle in the United States.
Ranchers use donkeys to protect herds from predators.
Why do farmers remove calves from mothers?
In dairy farming, calves are usually separated from their mothers very quickly, sometimes within hours of birth. This is done both to harvest the cow's milk for human consumption, and also because it's thought that isolating the calves is safer for them.
Heavy exposures have occurred. Clinical signs of wormy cattle include pale mucous membranes, bottle jaw, pot belly, diarrhea, drawed, not grazing, not chewing cud, rough and dry haircoat, thinness, weakness and in- ability to stand. These signs are similar to those caused by malnutrition and liver flukes.
Livestock branding is a technique for marking livestock so as to identify the owner. Originally, livestock branding only referred to hot branding large stock with a branding iron, though the term now includes alternative techniques.
Common Redpolls are brown and white birds with heavily streaked sides. Look for a small red forehead patch, black feathering around a yellow bill, and two white wingbars. Males have a pale red vest on the chest and upper flanks. Redpolls travel in flocks of up to several hundred individuals.