52
he lack of diverse bloodlines and high index sires has for a long time kept polled Holstein genetics as a niche market, both in the UK and internationally. The advent of young genomic sires has now brought new opportunities for breeders to incorporate polling into their herds.
T The genetics of 'polling' is
relatively straightforward and controlled by one gene. The polled allele is dominant and so any animal carrying it will not have horns. DNA tested animals with two copies (homozygous) of the allele are coded POS in the UK and all their offspring will be polled. DNA tested animals with one polled allele (heterozygous) are labelled
Table 1 TOP 20 PLI polled AI bulls available in the UK as of February 2016 Homozygous polled (POS) bulls are shown in bold the table.
Animal Name
SEAGULL-BAY SS AVENGER-P ABS POLDARK ODIN P
VIEW-HOME POWERBALL-P K&L BL CANON P
BALU ERALDO PP PG SUPERPOLL
PINE-TREE-GF REMARK-P TIGER-LILY LADD P-RED APINA MESSIAH P RED HARTFORD L SVEEN P
MAPEL WOOD BALL OF WAX-PP CALBRETT BLUEPRINT PP LORD RED P
VISSTEIN DEBUTE P-RED BURUS P
PINE-TREE OVERTIME P
APRILDAY-CG REVOLVER-RED GEN-I-BEQ ATTORNEY
AI Company
Genus Breeding Ltd Genus Breeding Ltd Mastergen Ltd
King Street/Molecare Genus Breeding Ltd
Premier Polled Genetics
Mastergen Ltd
Cogent Breeding Ltd Genus Breeding Ltd Cogent Breeding Ltd Genus Breeding Ltd Mastergen Ltd
Cogent Breeding Ltd Semex UK
Mastergen Ltd
Genus Breeding Ltd Molecare Genetics Semex UK
Mastergen Ltd Semex UK
DOB
12/07/2014 10/01/2015 02/09/2014 20/05/2013 03/10/2014
17/05/2014 25/04/2014
26/08/2013 22/01/2013 18/05/2010 25/02/2013 07/02/2014 29/08/2014 16/07/2013 03/06/2013 28/09/2014 14/02/2013 12/05/2012 21/07/2012 28/09/2012
Code POC
POS POC POC POC
POS POS
POC POC POC POC POC POS POS POC POC POS POC POC POC
PLI £ 579
550 549 488 477
462 423
418 408 391 389 389 379 369 364 362 354 352 343 340
PLI Rlb %
63 61 62 64 63
61 63
63 63 83 63 60 61 64 64 62 28 65 64 65
TM TM Rlb % 1.97
1.06 1.7
1.66 0.96
1.53 1.32
2.14 1.59 1.96 0.71 3.52 1.88 1.55 2.38 1.63 2.45 1.84 1.13 1.7
Polled Holsteins often have either ‘P’ or ‘PP’ suffixing their names, but not always such as Balu and ABS Poldark in the table. Polled status can thus only reliably be determined from the genetic codes (POS or POC).
62 61 59 65 61
60 61
63 63 76 59 58 60 65 64 59 83 65 64 66
POC and at least half their progeny will be polled. Some polled animals do have small scurs, but these will not develop into horns.
As of February 2016, there were 29 heterozygous polled and 10 homozygous polled AI sires available in the UK. The top 20 PLI polled bulls from these, are shown in Table 1.
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