Pedigree Dairy Breeds : Dairy Shorthorn

History The Shorthorn breed of cattle has evolved over the last two centuries, from Teeswater and Durham cattle found originally in the North East of England in the Tees river valley and Durham. In the late 18th Century two brothers, Charles and Robert Colling started to improve these Durham cattle using line breeding techniques established so successfully by Robert Bakewell on Longhorn cattle. In 1783 Charles Colling found four particular cows recorded as Duchess, Cherry, Strawberry, and Old Favourite among others, and at the same time his brother Robert had noticed the superiority of calves in the local market bred from a bull known as...

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Pedigree Dairy Breeds : Busa

History The breed of cattle called Busa or sometimes Busha, Bosnian or Illyrian are a small native breed which belong to a group of primitive short horned cattle (Bos brachyceros europaeus) with multiple strains of the breed being found across the Balkans. Some sources state that the Busa has existed around the Balkan Peninsula since Neolithic times. Photo courtesy of Zoran Petrov, Busa breeder, Serbia In the 19th Century, Busa from Croatia and Bosnia (then under the Austria-Hungarian Empire) were crossed with an Austrian breed. This cross is larger than the original Busa and it is exclusively grey in colour. During the civil war...

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Pedigree Dairy Breeds : Brown Swiss

History Most dairy historians agree that Brown Swiss or Braunvieh cattle are the oldest of all dairy breeds. The beautiful brown cows were developed in the north-eastern part of Switzerland. Bones found in the ruins of Swiss lake dwellers date back to probably 4000 BC, and have some resemblance to the skeleton of today's Brown Swiss cow. Documentary evidence shows that the Benedictine monks residing at the Einsiedeln Monastery started breeding these cattle as early as approximately 1000 years ago. The canton of Schwyz was the scene of most of the early improvement of the Brown Swiss, and in Switzerland the breed is often referred to...

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Pedigree Dairy Breeds : Ayrshire

History Photo courtesy of Topline Ayrshires,www.toplineayrshires.com The Ayrshire breed originated in the County of Ayr in Scotland, prior to 1800 and was regarded as an established breed by 1812. During its development, it was referred to first as the Dunlop, then the Cunningham, and finally, the Ayrshire. How the different strains of cattle were crossed to form the breed known as Ayrshire is not exactly known. There is good evidence that several breeds were crossed with native cattle to create the foundation animals of the breed. In Agriculture, Ancient and Modern, published in 1866, Samual Copland describes the native cattle of the...

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