We have a 6 month old Holstein/Simmental heifer whose horn wiggles. They have done this since we bought her at the age of 2 months. One horn recently broke completely off. There was a small horn growing underneath. This new horn also wiggles. We also have a 10 month Brahman/beafmaster bull whose horns are solid and do not wiggle. We feed them both the same things and I was wondering could it just be the type of breed that she is?

-- cindy (cag@icansurf.com), August 25, 2000

Answers

I don't think so. I remember some calves on my dad's holstein dairy having wiggly horns. I don't know why. Usually if a cow had a wiggly horn it was because she had broken it somehow. I don't think diet or breed would cause it. Maybe you just got a funny calf. It's kinda' strange that that one came off and there's another one under it. Maybe that first one was a baby horn....

-- Joe Cole (jcole@apha.com), August 25, 2000.

The horns are called scurs. Normally it happens when a polled (no natural horns) is bred to an unpolled one. Can pretty well happen in any herd. Several of mine are that way. Both of my bulls are polled, but some of my cows have horns. They are nothing to worry about.

-- Ken S. in TN (scharabo@aol.com), August 25, 2000.