![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Polled-Cows-2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
AT A recent bull sale I attended, bids started to slow on one of the lots catalogued as \u2018horned.\u2019<\/p>\n
The auctioneer reassured the crowd: \u201cDon\u2019t worry about the horns, we can whip them off in three seconds, just look at the rest of him.\u201d The line drew some laughs, but it also raised a serious question.<\/p>\n
Where are we with polled cattle? Are horns really so trivial that they can be brushed aside, or should we expect more? Some breeders (both stud and commercial) in recent public statements clearly see polled selection as little more than \u201cwindow dressing\u201d and a cosmetic service trait that distracts from genuine profit drivers such as growth, fertility and carcase merit.<\/p>\n
Dehorning cattle is a significant invasive procedure with well-documented welfare impacts. The Australian Beef Sustainability Framework (ABSF) tracks dehorning and disbudding under its animal-husbandry indicators and has set a target of 100 percent use of pain mitigation for invasive procedures by 2030.<\/p>\n
The ABSF also reports on the proportion of cattle that are genetically polled. In its 2024 update, it noted that around 71.9pc of the national studbook was genetically polled in 2022. Breeding polled animals reduces the need for dehorning altogether, making it a durable welfare improvement that aligns with declared industry targets.<\/p>\n
There are well documented economic and workplace-safety arguments regarding the need for polled cattle. An MLA study (AHW.094) published 20 years ago estimated that even back then, economic losses through bruising accounted for $22.5 million per year to the Australian meat industry, with horns a major cause. In 2025, the true cost would be materially higher in today\u2019s dollars. Regardless of the exact number, the causal link between horns and bruising in Australian work is significant.<\/p>\n
The Workplace Health & Safety context has also sharpened. Agriculture remains one of Australia\u2019s highest-risk sectors for serious injuries and fatalities, according to the latest Safe Work Australia releases. Horns add risk every time cattle are drafted, loaded or processed.<\/p>\n
Removing the procedure (and the hardware) removes recurring labour, drug and complication costs, and it removes a predictable source of handler risk. Quite clearly for these reasons, breeding for polledness is certainly not simple \u201cwindow dressing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Social licence and market expectations add additional pressure to move towards polledness. The ABSF publishes annual updates used by processors, policymakers and the public as a transparent scorecard.<\/p>\n
Consumers and regulators increasingly expect the beef industry to avoid painful procedures where viable alternatives exist. Persisting with horned genetics, when polled cattle are widely available, will not read well against the industry\u2019s own published commitments. In this context, the notion that horns can be taken off \u2018in three seconds\u2019 is out of step with where the industry says it is heading.<\/p>\n
Undermining progress in other selection traits?<\/p>\n
The claim that polled selection undermines progress in growth or carcase performance does not stand up to breeding and selection decisions in 2025.<\/p>\n
With EBVs, indexes and genomic tools, selection for polledness should be considered as a basic threshold.\u00a0 It is important to recognise that producers can keep selecting hard for fertility, growth and carcase merit.<\/p>\n
The risk has never been selecting polled; the risk is single-trait selection of any kind. Done properly, polledness is a structural improvement that removes an invasive procedure at zero ongoing cost while the breeding program continues to target the traits that drive kilograms and compliance.<\/p>\n
The auction agent\u2019s casual reassurance reflects an older mindset, when horns were seen as an inconvenience (and often, an indicator of \u2018good bone\u2019) rather than a strategic issue. Today, the weight of evidence says otherwise. Polled cattle are not window dressing; they are a practical response to welfare concerns, workplace risks, avoidable bruising losses and social expectations.<\/p>\n
Dismissing polled as cosmetic overlooks the industry\u2019s own commitments and risks leaving producers behind as markets, regulators and the community demand better.<\/p>\n
Far from being a distraction, polled is one of the clearest examples of how genetics can deliver both profitability and sustainability.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Beef Central has previously done breed-by-breed progress updates on movement towards polledness in breeds where both horned and polled genetics are evident. Click here to view. \u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Alastair Rayner<\/p>\n Alastair Rayner\u00a0is Principal of RaynerAg and an Extension & Engagement Consultant with the Agricultural Business Research Institute (ABRI). He has over 28 years\u2019 experience advising beef producers and graziers across Australia. Alastair can be contacted here or through his website:\u00a0www.raynerag.com.au<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AT A recent bull sale I attended, bids started to slow on one of the lots catalogued as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[7663,3302,254,21076,21077,61,60,3865,21078,82,21079,21080],"class_list":{"0":"post-24687","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-cattle","9":"tag-genetic","10":"tag-genetics","11":"tag-horn","12":"tag-horned","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-poll","16":"tag-polled","17":"tag-science","18":"tag-selection","19":"tag-trait"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/unnamed-66-1-e1750749721925.jpg\")
<\/p>\n