[Jacob-list] more on the horns

[Neal and Louise Grose]

Fused horns and left/right symmetry are probably due to a fairly large number of genes and therefore would not exhibit a simple dominate/recessive relationship. what you are looking at is the distance between the horns. If the horns get too far apart, then you have the opposite condition of forward tipped horns, which is also bad. In our flock, there is a strong relationship between forward tipped horns and split eye-lid defect.

Our experience with using a fully fused 4 horned ram (you would have thought he had 2 massive horns except that he had a clear line that ran the length of the horns) is that he sired excellent symmetry and rather correct horn set, so nothing is a given.

Like many things, what is most appealing to us is symmetry and "average". Several years ago, Newsweek ran an article on "Beauty". The composite picture that they made of a statisically average and symmetrical face looked much like Hale Berry. Their picture of "ugly" looked like Lyle Lovett.

Neal Grose
North Carolina

"Statistics gives you a correct answer. That does not mean you have asked the right question." STAT301
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Melody 
  To: jacob-list at jacobsheep.com 
  Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 3:37 PM
  Subject: [Jacob-list] more on the horns


  A while back I posted about using a new ram who is a 5h . I mentioned my disappointment that he threw nothing but 2h lambs.  Well, I have to amend that.  My sheep have been visiting my sister for about a month (they go to her place every spring to help eat down her excess pasture)  and the lambs are growing nicely,  2 mo old now, and I took a good hard look at them last weekend.  All those "2h" ram  are actually 3h and 4h with fused horns, except for one who is a 2h with the tiniest scurs poking out above his ears I've ever seen, and one 3h that is fused at the base, but starting to separate toward the tips.  So--this changes the issue.   When I bought the ram as a lamb his horns on the odd side were not fused, although a bit close.  I was looking for fleece improvement, and he has wonderful fleece, so I didn't worry about the horn spacing--which I should have, I know.  As he matured, the two laterals on that side began to grow together until now, as a yearling, they are almost completely fused, separating just a little at the very tip.  I figure I just blew a whole year's breeding--this has got to be genetic, I've only had one fused horn lamb born here in 6 years  and for every offspring of a new ram to do this...aagh!   
  Fred, any input on the genetics of fused horns?   Is it dominant?  I have a number of unrelated ewes, so for it to be recessive wouldn't that mean that all of those ewes would have to carry the gene?  What are the chances of that?  Of  the 8 ewes I bred this year, there are 4 completely unrelated bloodlines.   
  Melody


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