Holstein cattle

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Holstein cow 1895
Holstein cow
Holstein dairy cows

The Holstein cattle breed is one of the world's most important dairy cattle breeds. It is generally synonymous with the high-performance dairy cow. In Germany, it is the most commonly used breed in milk production . With more than 1.6 million registered breeding animals, Germany also has the world's largest breeding population. It is bred in the color direction black and white (Holstein-Friesian, HF) and red and white (Red Holstein).

history

The origins of this breed lie in North America, when German emigrants took their Frisian and Holstein lands back home with them in the 17th century . In the USA and Canada, a breed with a very high milk yield but a low fat content of the milk was bred from the imported animals (first breeding association founded in 1871).

The cattle , now known as Holstein-Friesian (HF), only made it to Germany via Canada and the USA , where the first herd book was founded in 1876. This new direction of breeding only prevailed in the 1960s against the Black Holstein lowland cattle in the Federal Republic of Germany. In the early 1980s the color to Red Holstein was strong in the population of the German Red Holsteins crossed.

Holstein-Friesian were crossed late in the GDR. In order to increase the fat and protein content in the milk and significantly improve milkability, from 1961 onwards the black and white lowland cattle were paired with Danish Jersey on a trial basis and later as planned . Holstein-Friesian was added to the crossbred animals from the 1970s in order to increase frame and milk yield. Meanwhile the black and white milk cattle (SMR) and the black and white lowland cattle are threatened with extinction. The Dutch-Argentine cattle originated from the latter in South America . For the purpose of better marketing, the two breeding directions Red Holstein and Holstein-Friesian were combined as Holstein cattle.

Today the Holstein-Friesian cattle have a strong tendency to displace other cattle breeds worldwide due to their high milk yield. Furthermore, Holstein cattle have been and are crossed into many dairy breeds around the world. In particular, bulls from the USA are used heavily worldwide.

Complex vertebral malformation (CVM) is a well-known hereditary disease .

An oversized Holstein cattle, a bull from Western Australia named Knickers, became the subject of worldwide news in November 2018 because it was too large to be processed in the local slaughterhouses, which accordingly refused to accept it. At that time Knickers weighed around 1,400 kg and had a shoulder height of 194 cm.

Special features

  • large-framed high-performance cow with a genetic focus on milk production
  • high milk yield

Key figures

  • Weight approx. 600 to 750 kg
  • Height at withers approx. 1.45 m (tendency slightly rising)
  • annual milk production approx. 8,000 kg / year (10,000 to 16,000 for top animals)
  • an average of 4.0% fat and 3.5% protein in milk as a breeding goal
  • Above average number of stillbirths and deaths in the first three days after birth.

The German Livestock Transport Regulation , the race Holstein Holsteins the breed key 01, race Holstein Red Holstein racial key 02 to. This identifier must be entered in the cattle passport . In addition to the data that must be recorded under EU law , these breed codes must be reported by the keeper immediately after the identification , i.e. usually after the ear tag has been affixed, to the competent authority or its authorized body and entered in their inventory register.

In the German population of 1.67 million Holstein females in 2018, a typical breed height of 145–150 cm at the withers and a mass of 700 kg and a milk yield of 9000 kg are assumed, with a population in 2018 of 156,471 red Holstein women same sacrum height and mass and a milk yield of 8000 kg per year.

literature

  • Antje Elfrich, Elisabeth Roesicke: Cattle breeds (= AID. 1548). aid information service consumer protection, nutrition, agriculture eV, Bonn 2009, ISBN 978-3-8308-0819-0 .

Web links

Commons : Holstein Cattle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jacqueline Lynch, Tyne Logan: Knickers the steer, one of the world's biggest steers, avoids the abattoir thanks to his size . ABC News, October 29, 2018
  2. ↑ Too big for the slaughterhouse - XXL ox Knickers is allowed to live - Stuttgarter Nachrichten (DPA story), November 28, 2018
  3. ↑ Daniel Victor: Wow, That Steer Is Really Big . New York Times, November 28
  4. ↑ Milk production and animal welfare. (PDF; 3.2 MB) Swiss Animal Welfare , 2016, accessed on January 26, 2020 .
  5. ↑ List of breed codes according to Appendix 6 of the Cattle Traffic Ordinance
  6. ↑ Federal Office for Agriculture and Food : Central Documentation of Animal Genetic Resources in Germany ( TGRDEU ), accessed May 26, 2020