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Sacral Deformity in the "Wrytail" Abnormality in Cattle¹

Divisions of Dairy Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine, Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station, St. Paul, Minnesota

ABSTRACT

The importance and the possible mode of inheritance of "wrytail" in cattle have been presented by Atkeson and Warren (2) and by Atkeson et al. (1). These workers point out that the "wrytail" character has been observed in the Guernsey, Holstein-Friesian, Ayrshire, Brown Swiss and Jersey breeds. Their data indicate its inheritance as a single autosomal recessive. Observations of the present authors have extended to four breeds heretofore unreported and include 137 cattle of different ages and both sexes, as follows: Beef Shorthorns, 51; Aberdeen Angus, 39; Hereford, 17; Red Polled, 30. The only case of wrytail found was in one Red Polled cow in which the tailhead was set to the left.

A "wrytail", according to Atkeson et al. (1) is a malformation consisting of a distortion of the tail head, the base of the tail being set at an angle to the back bone instead of in line with it.

¹ Approved for publication as Scientific Journal Series Paper no. 2399 of the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station.

² The authors wish to express their appreciation to Dr. H. C. H. Kernkamp, Veterinary Division, University of Minnesota for kind advice and radiographic observations.