The cattle industry is moving slowly toward eliminating the need for dehorning through polled breeding, and accelerating this transition represents a major welfare opportunity.
The transition to polled cattle would eliminate one of the most common and painful routine livestock procedures in a single generation of breeding decisions. This represents one of the clearest welfare wins available through genetic selection with minimal productivity trade-off. Consumer demand for products from polled animals, combined with breeding company investment in polled genetics across breeds, is the most direct path to industry-wide transition.