Pinzgauers are traditionally a horned breed, but some polled lines showed up in Austria in the last century that were accepted into the studbook. These were held by a breeder called 'Haller Wirt'. He allowed one animal to be made available to all breeders, and all offspring henceforth were to be prefixed with the name 'Haller' by verbal agreement with this breeder. This tradition has been kept up in Austria until very recently.
The Poll Gene is a dominant gene. This means that an animal can carry only one copy of the gene and be a polled (or scurred) animal. It also means that herds can quite quickly move towards being mostly polled, but the recessive gene may still occasionally resurface and a horned animal is born. The expression of scurs is not fully understood and involves genetic markers additional to those tested for Poll.
In Australia, 'fullblood' status of animals was recognised for a couple of decades after importation of seed stock from Canada. An animal called 'Haller Wasti' had been imported into North America from Austria, and poll lines were derived from him that also came into Australia. There are some 'fullblood' descendant animals available now that are polls.
In Australia, there are also breeding up programs to Purebred status, which is at least a 5th cross for bulls. These programs, mostly involving Shorthorn and Red Angus, allowed the introduction of poll genetics without being forced to narrow the bloodlines too much.
A test for the poll markers has been available in Europe for some time, and has been used by European Pinzgauer breeders promoting their bulls. In February 2018 poll testing has become available in Australia through NEOGEN, and Pinzgauer society members have been quick to take up this testing, in order to determine whether animals bred from two animals with the poll phenotype are now heterozygous or homozygous polls. Breeding a homozygous poll bull is the goal of the breeder, as such a bull will produce 100% polled offspring. Please refer Registrations for details re this testing.
There are several polled bulls currently working in Australian herds, such as:
- Bimbadeen Park Liam (Haller Line via Canada)
- Shalni Park J-Man (Haller Line via Canada)
- Vestfold Park Trigger (by Dalgaard Amadeus (DK))
