[Jacob-list] Comments on horn genetics

[Linda]

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I'm beginning to get it - maybe.  
 
So the hornless gene (hl) is another name for the scur gene?  I've read a little on horn genetics and the lack of universal abbreviations makes it even more confusing.   

The way I understand it (or think I understand it - not the same thing!), a ewe that is hl/hl is not going to show any true horns - true horns referring to firmly attached horns with blood flow.  I'm only dealing with polycerate here. A ewe that is H/H is going to have all true horns.   A ram is going to show true horns if he has one H - phenotypically it doesn't matter what the other is - he's going to have horns.  That much I got.   Now I get confused.  Am I correct in interpreting  your post as saying that a ewe that is H/hl (and polycerate) can exhibit either four true horns or two true tops with scurred/aberrant laterals?  Discounting environmental causes for the moment (which I don't - you can read an old ewes history in her horns), is an adult ewe with scurred laterals - on BOTH sides - most probably carrying the hl gene?  So the H/hl relationship is not a simple matter of dominant/recessive?  

Linda
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