Sayaguesa

Sayaguesa cow in the Lippeaue nature reserve

Sayaguesa cow in the Netherlands

Sayaguesa , also called Zamorana, is an original Spanish domestic cattle breed from the Comarca de Sayago in the province of Zamora , which still shows some clear characteristics of the extinct aurochs .

Appearance and description

The animals are very large, adult cows weigh between 650 and 700 kg, bulls between 1000 and 1100 kg. The bulls are black and often have a light eel line . The cows are often only slightly lighter than the bulls, but a few Sayaguesa cows are still ruddy-brown, and they also have the light-rimmed muzzle . The horns are aurochs-like and curved forward, especially in bulls. Sayaguesa is a long-legged breed, which also has an often curved back line, which reminds its stature of that of the aurochs. Like some other primitive cattle breeds, Sayaguesas do not have the short "calf face" that many other domestic cattle have.

The breed is considered to be long-lived, robust and frugal and therefore lives freely all year round with most owners and does not need a stable or shelter.

Occurrence

These strong cattle are traditionally used as work and draft animals. There are only around 640 specimens left and the breed has been endangered since 1997. It is the low profitability of the primitive races that prompts many farmers to switch from these to more productive races or to cross them with them.

Due to its auroch-like nature, Sayaguesa is enjoying increasing popularity in a number of renaturation projects. Sayaguesas are used, for example, by the Working Group on Biological Environmental Protection in the Soest district . Since 1996 it has been crossing mainly Heck cattle , Sayaguesa and Chianina in order to increase the similarity of Heck cattle to aurochs. These breeds are called Taurus cattle . The Stichting Taurus also uses this breed, where it is integrated into the image breeding project TaurOs Project . This also works with other races such as Pajuna , Maremmana primitivo or Maronesa .

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See also

• Aurochs
• Maronesa
• Pajuna (beef)

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Margret Bunzel-Drüke, Carsten Boehm, Peter Finck, Gerd Kämmer, Rainer Luick, Edgar Reisinger, Uwe Riecken, Johannes Riedl, Matthias Scharf, Olaf Zimball: "Wilde Weiden". Practical guide for year-round grazing in nature conservation and landscape development. 2nd Edition. Working group for biological environmental protection in the Soest district, Bad Sassendorf-Lohne 2009, ISBN 978-3-00-024385-1 .
2. ↑ Sayaguesa. Federación Española de Asociaciones de Ganado Selecto (Spanish)
3. ↑ Original breeds. The Tauros Program (English).

Web links

Commons : Sayaguesa  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• JE Yanes García: La raza Sayaguesa: Idiosincrasia de una reliquia desconocida. In: Archivos de Zootecnia. Vol. 50, 2001, pp. 97-103 (Spanish, PDF file)
• Sayaguesa. Federación Española de Asociaciones de Ganado Selecto (Spanish)
• Tauros Project