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.