Galloway (beef)
The Galloway cattle are suitable for year-round free-range rearing . The small to medium- sized robust breed comes from the eponymous district of Galloway in southwest Scotland .
features
An essential feature of the Galloways is their double-layered coat with long, wavy outer hair and fine, dense undercoat. This and their comparatively thick skin as well as the adapted, economical metabolism make the Galloways particularly resilient. Therefore, they can withstand harsh winters outdoors without any problems. Today, Galloways are bred worldwide in the pigmentations "black" (black), "dun" (fawn, yellow-brown) and "red" (red-brown).
Riggit Galloway is a color that is available in all three pigmentations, but with a characteristic white checkered back and other unpigmented areas on the hind legs and head.
Belted Galloway and White Galloway are separate breeds. Belted Galloway are outwardly characterized by their unpigmented "belt" (white stripes of fur) around the belly. White Galloway have white fur, which ideally has one of the aforementioned pigmentations only on the ears, snout, feet and around the eyes.
Historical
In the prehistoric British Isles there were two archetypes of today's cattle breeds: one was hornless (ancestor of the Galloways), the other had short horns (later Highland, Devon and Hereford cattle).
The first historical description of these animals goes back to the poet Livy († between 207 and 200 BC). The Romans were already familiar with the excellent meat of black cattle. These were the only living beings that were allowed to pass through Hadrian's Wall , which protected the Roman province of Britannia from the tribes from Scotland, from the north. Scottish herd books have been kept since the Middle Ages but were destroyed in a fire at the Edinburgh Ministry of Agriculture in 1851. In 1878 the Galloway Cattle Society was founded in Castle Douglas exclusively for monochrome animals. In 1921, the Belted Galloway Cattle Society followed, which also registers Riggets and White Galloways in separate herd book sections . In Germany, the different breeds have been paired with each other since 2002 and registered in a mixed herdbook of all Galloway variants. For some years now, Galloway cattle have been increasingly used in nature conservation for the maintenance of fallow land and extensive grassland .
White Galloways
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The White Galloways are also polled Scottish cattle that are suitable for year-round free-range husbandry and belong to the extensive, robust beef cattle breeds. The main part of their fur is almost white, but there is mostly black, sometimes also blonde or red-brown pigmentation on the ears, mouth, feet and around the eyes. However, these features are based on a mixed inheritance, so that they are only retained with the certain probabilities according to Mendel's rules. In pure breeding, 25% pure white Galloways, 50% mixed breed, which correspond to the phenotype of the initial generation, and 25% single-colored (mostly black) Galloways, which neither show white markings nor can they inherit. The pure white Galloways again do not correspond to the breeding goal, as the characteristic pigmentation is missing. When mating with monochrome animals, however, 100% mixed-breed animals with characteristic pigmentation result. According to Mendel, mating of mixed-breed animals with monochrome animals again results in 50% mixed-breed and 50% monochrome animals. The genetics of color inheritance in White Galloways were clarified in 2013. By duplicating the KIT gene on chromosome 6 and translocating it to chromosome 29, the different colors (black, well-marked, over-marked, under-marked) can be explained (White Galloway Stars). Black White Galloways correspond to the wild type and have no translocation of the KIT gene. Well-marked and over-marked White Galloways are heterozygous and under-marked White Galloways are homozygous for the translocation of the KIT gene on chromosome 29. The good or over-marked coloration preferred by breeders can thus be achieved by crossing the wild type (black) with an under-marked White Galloway .
These facts also suggest the theory that the drawing is a relic of a cross between the Galloways and the English park cattle, which has been preserved due to its attractive appearance. Since, after many generations of mating with single-colored Galloways, this cross has most likely only left the changed locus for the externally visible markings, different characteristics (such as an increased milk yield) compared to single-colored Galloways remain pure speculation.
There is disagreement among breeders as to how far the separate herdbook sections in Great Britain already justify a separate breed name for the White Galloways . It is also often said that the gene pool of these cattle is not sufficient for a breed of their own, as the white Galloways still alive today, after they were once almost extinct, allegedly descended from only two mother cows, one from Canada and one from Scotland. With the clarification of the color inheritance in White Galloways , however, a separate breed name no longer appears justified.
Inheritance of colors
With the help of a model with three different gene locations, probabilities for the color of the calf can be calculated according to Mendel's laws when the different color varieties are paired. In all matings, a calf is born whose color can not always be explained by the phenotypes of the parent animals, but at least always by their genotypes. In the case of White Galloways, for example, a Riggit or Belted gene can go unnoticed for many generations and then come back into expression. In general, however, any white markings, regardless of whether they are White Riggit or Belted Galloway, are not passed on in a hidden manner in single-colored Galloways. Almost all matings lead to one of the listed colors. There is a special exception when Belted-Gen and Riggit-Gen come together and there is a strange mixture of these colors. To avoid such cases and to “keep the genetics of the individual color varieties pure”, the Federal Association of German Galloway Breeders (BDG) calls for pure breeding of the various color varieties. The Belted Galloways in particular are exclusively pure-bred by renowned breeders anyway. At White- and Riggit Galloways, breeders disagree about the need for pure breeding. The problem of the mixed inheritance of White Galloways described above also applies to Riggit Galloways, so that with both color varieties in pure breeding only 50% of the offspring correspond to the phenotype of the parents and thus the breeding goal. Genuine Riggits and Genuine White Galloways are completely unpigmented and externally indistinguishable from each other.
Inheritance of pigmentations
Easily understandable rules according to Mendel can also be drawn up for the inheritance of the pigmentations BLACK, DUN and RED. So it can be said that a DUN hereditary disposition is always externally visible, a BLACK hereditary disposition can only remain invisible in the dark blonde mixed inheritance with DUN and that a recessive RED gene can be hidden in the phenotype of the other pigmentations. If an animal is phenotypically RED, it no longer has any capacities for the other pigmentations. If an animal is apricot-colored, it is a rare case of a pure-breeding RED-Galloway with an additional DUN system.
mass and weight
Bulls: Height at withers : about 136 cm, weight: about 900 kg; Cows: Height at withers: about 124 cm, weight: about 600 kg
literature
- Friedrich Hardegg, Wolfgang Müller: Robust cattle. Highland Cattle and Galloway. Origin - keeping - breeding. avBook - Österreichischer Agrarverlag, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-7040-2275-2 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hans Hinrich Sambraus: color atlas of farm animal breeds. 263 races in words and pictures . 7th expanded edition. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-8001-7613-7 , Galloway, p. 80 .
- ↑ Breed description cattle: Galloway. In: Central Documentation of Animal Genetic Resources in Germany (TGRDEU). Federal Agency for Agriculture and Food, accessed on August 11, 2015 .
- ^ Cattle breeds. In: Central Documentation of Animal Genetic Resources in Germany (TGRDEU). Federal Agency for Agriculture and Food, accessed on August 11, 2015 .
- ^ B. Brenig, J. Beck, C. Floren, K. Bornemann-Kolatzki, I. Wiedemann, S. Hennecke, H. Swalve, E. Schütz: Molecular genetics of coat color variations in White Galloway and White Park cattle. In: Anim Genet. 44 (4), pp. 450-453.
- ↑ White Galloway Stars