What is the difference between polled and scurred? (2024)

Scurs are a kind of horn and they can have many different forms, but they grow slower than a normal horn. However, scurs do not normally grow on the cranium, so they are loose if you hold and move the “horns”.

There’s no test for scurs, so to be sure, it is necessary to perform a scan of the cranium and the horns. The reason is that some scurs will crown a small bit to the cranium, so they do not move when you try to move them.

The good thing for you, as a farmer, is that bulls much more often have scurs than cows do, and that polledness affects scurs.

To make it simpler, we start to reduce the number of animals where scurs have an effect. If the animal has two horned genes and therefore is horned or two polled genes and therefore is hom*ozygotic polled, scurs have no effect.

The scurred condition has an effect when the animal has one polled gene and one horned gene, and therefore is heterozygotic polled (Ph).

Scurs are controlled by one pair of genes like polledness. If the animal has two genes for Scurs (Sc-Sc), both male and females will get scurs. On the other side, if the animal does not have any genes for scurs (sc-sc), the animal will not get scurs and will be totally polled.

If the animal has one gene for scurs and one normal gene (Sc-sc), the animal is heterozygotic for scurs. In this case, there will be a difference between males and females. The males will, in this case, get scurs, while the females will not get scurs and therefore will be totally polled. In table 1, you can see an overview of scurs and polledness.