Wendell Miller: Below is a letter I sent to the Hoard's Dairyman in response to a farm woman who writes a column for the magazine. For those who don't get the  magazine, she lamented about the difficulty in getting dehorning done in a timely matter. She said that when you mention dehorning, it's suddenly hard  to find anyone around to help. I am surprised that people like her aren't using polled bulls. I wonder how many dairy farmers are aware of the  selection of polled bulls that are available. It will be interesting to see what kind of response we see on the polled forums if HD prints my  letter. Wendell Richlo Polled Dairy I agree with Marilyn Hershey (Oct. 25) that dehorning is a real headache. I hate cutting horns off; I hate the smell of burnt hair; and I hate the pain dehorning causes calves. But the good news is that we have a lot of calves on our farm  born without horns. Every breed has a few naturally polled bulls available. If you are milking Holsteins, Jerseys, Milking Shorthorns, or Ayrshires,  or crossbreeding with Norwegian Reds, you can find good, proven AI bulls  that are polled, and good pedigreed, polled young sires being sampled. It is true that the best proven horned bulls are better than the best  proven polled bulls (except in the Norwegian Red breed), but there are also a lot of horned bulls that are worse. Our breeding strategy is to use  polled young sires sampled by AI studs, and then breed the polled heifers to the best horned bulls. We do use some proven polled bulls, if they have  traits other than polled that would help our herd. For more information on the internet, you can join the discussion groups PolledDairyCows http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/PolledDairyCows/ , which is for all dairy breeds, or polljersey http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/polljersey/ ,which is specifically for Jerseys. I often hear farmers say that  dehorning only takes a few minutes. Maybe, but it often doesn't get done. For instance, how many bull calves are dehorned before they are sent to the sale  barn? And how many farmers would want a tour group of schoolchildren watching them dehorn? Dehorning is an animal welfare issue that the dairy industry will have to deal with. Imagine if PETA would show videos of some of the  worst dehorning jobs. I suggest the dairy industry get ahead of the issue, and gradually move toward naturally polled. If every dairy farmers would start using a few polled bulls, we could eliminate dehorning eventually, just like most beef breeds have done. Unless you enjoy the smell of burned hair, blood, and struggling with calves, using polled bulls is the way to go.