Shorthorn beef
The Shorthorn cattle breed originally comes from England, more precisely from the area between Durham and York .
The breed comes in the three color directions red, roan (red mold) and white, but these are not bred separately. The mucous membranes are white and the animals have short horns , a typical breed characteristic is the sternum protruding far between the front legs. Two directions of use, Milchshorthorn and Fleischshorthorn, are bred.
In Great Britain the breed is listed as potentially endangered on the watch list of the British Rare Breeds Survival Trust .
history
In the 18th century the Durhamrace was improved by the Colling brothers. An important beef cattle breed developed on their breeding material. In the 19th century, the Shorthorn cattle were crossed into many European cattle breeds (e.g. Charolais ) and exported to America. In Germany, a small breeding area was also established in Schleswig-Holstein , in which the German Shorthorn has survived to this day.
In the middle of the 19th century the two breeding directions Milchshorthorn and Fleischshorthorn emerged.
Among other things, Shorthorn cattle were temporarily used in the breeding of Kurgan cattle from 1901 .
Meat Shorthorn (Beef Shorthorn)
This original breeding direction is medium-sized, with a weight of about 600 kilograms (cows) and 800 kilograms (bulls) and is well muscled. The cattle were bred to a larger animal in the USA . In Great Britain , as in other countries, these larger animals were crossed back into the starting population.
The animals are precocious, which means that they reach their final weight very quickly and then become fat. In addition, the meat performance is only average.
That is why bulls of the Maine Anjou breed were crossbred in Great Britain in the 1980s . A breeding program tries to reduce the genetic content of crossbreeding.
Milkshorthorn (Dairy Shorthorn)
The milk horn is slightly larger and heavier than the meat horn. Bulls weigh around 1000 kilograms, cows around 650 kilograms. Depending on the country, the milk yield is around 5000 to 6000 kilograms of milk with around 3.5 percent fat. The performance of the breed in the USA is higher because Red Holstein has been crossbred there since around 1990 .
literature
- Klaus Frahm: Cattle breeds in the countries of the European Community. 2nd, revised and expanded edition. Ferdinand Enke, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-432-92382-1 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Rare Breeds Survival Trust watchlist ( memento of the original from September 7, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed June 7, 2015
- ^ Federal Association Shorthorn Züchter & Halter eV In: deutsches-shorthorn.de. Retrieved August 6, 2015 .
- ^ German Shorthorn. In: geh.de. Society for the preservation of old and endangered domestic animal breeds (GEH), accessed on August 6, 2015 (breed description).
- ↑ Lorenz Carstensen: The German Shorthorn cattle. In: Focus on cattle. Society for the Preservation of Old and Endangered Pet Breeds (GEH), 1994, accessed on August 6, 2015 .
- ^ Heinz Knefelkamp: German Shorthorn. In: vieh-ev.de. A diverse initiative for the conservation of old and endangered domestic animal breeds (VIEH), accessed on August 6, 2015 (breed portrait).
