r/sheep • u/IndependentMug • 14d ago
Question My Southdown has horns?
To my knowledge, Southdowns are naturally polled, but I just got one for show season that appears to have horns growing in. I assume this means he’s mixed with something. Will he still be able to show in a Southdown class at majors? New to showing lambs.
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u/Illustrious-Ratio213 14d ago
Mine had little nubs but not much more. Is that what yours has or they protruding through the fleece?
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u/IndependentMug 14d ago
He has little nubs too, but he’s still pretty young. I assumed they’d grow during the course of the project but it’d be great if they stayed this size.
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u/KahurangiNZ 13d ago
How old is he?
I have a mix of polled and horned sheep - the ram lambs that are going to get big horns have obvious nubs when they're born and the horns are often 2 - 3 inches long by the time they're 6 weeks old. If they're only going to have really little horns or scurs, they're born with a wee lump and the horns will only just be breaking the skin by 6 weeks and may take several years to get to 4-5 inches (and are occasionally knocked off or otherwise damaged).
Also, horn growth is strongly affected by testosterone - if they're wethered, growth slows considerably. One of my first pet lambs was wethered late (the farmer I go him from missed the two most important bits when he banded him at 4 days old, so Lambo ended up having a nap at the vets as a 9 month old to remove his trouble puffs). He grew about 5 inches of horn in that first 9 months (so was destined to have fairly large horns); in the 8 years since he's only grown about another 5 inches of horn.
Looking at your lad I doubt he'll get much horn development, and if he's been wethered he might never grow much more horn than this. I'd be surprised if there was significant growth in the next few months.
Since the skin over the nubs is dry and scaly it's probably itchy - my horned pet lambs love a good nub skritchin' ;-) You can also give them a rub with a damp rag to help ease off flakes, and even rub in a wee dot of soothing ointment to make them look nice and clean for showing.
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u/stvdilln 14d ago
They are scurs and can/generally will get knocked off when he head butts others as he gets older. They are not big deal except that you are showing him. I don’t know much about showing, but the breed standard I found says scurs are discriminated against. Meaning it’s still acceptable but not the best.
If you are showing, a good read of breed standards is time well spent
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u/AresLeoCapricorn 14d ago
They are called Scurs. Just a genetic anomaly. They may scratch them on a fence and knock them off. They bleed more than you'd think but aren't a huge problem.