When you breed a polled goat to a horned goat, half of the kids will be polled. That means you need to figure out which ones are polled so that you don't disbud them. It is also important to get this right so that when those goats grow up and have kids, their owner will know they need to determine whether the kids are polled.

When a kid is polled ...

• its head is completely smooth at birth
• the hair grows from the center of the head straight out and from the eyes straight up
• as the kid grows you may feel poll bumps, which are smooth (not pointy)
• its head may be egg shaped

When a kid is horned ...

• you can feel the horn buds at birth on bucklings
• there is a swirl of hair around each horn bud
• within a couple of weeks the horn buds start to feel pointy