Horny Cows

First scientists have been trying to make dairy cows less flatulent, now they are trying to make them hornless. Dairy cows grow horns, but dairy cows in the U.S. rarely have horns, because they are seared, cut, or chemically burned off. The purpose is to prevent injuries to other cows and handlers.

Recently, a company named Recombinetics took a hornless gene from a breed of beef cattle and inserted it into a breed of dairy cattle. The resulting cattle are hornless, good at producing milk, and still genetically 100 percent cattle. In the past, breeders could have crossed dairy cattle and hornless beef cattle to get hornless dairy cattle after many generations. The good news for dairy farmers is that the cows are hornless, but not less horny, just confused.