Westerwald beef

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The Westerwälder Rind (also Westerwälder cattle or Westerwälder Rotvieh) is an extinct domestic cattle - land breed that was bred in the Westerwald .

Appearance

The breed is assigned to the category of the red cattle . Like the other representatives of this category, the Westerwald cattle were also rather small. The cows were 118 to 122 centimeters high at the withers and the bulls 121 to 126 centimeters. The weight of the cows was between 300 and 400, that of the bulls between 500 and 700 kilograms.

The coloring of the animals was red-brown with a white head. The eyes were surrounded by red-brown rings, which either merged into the brown fur of the neck or were completely separated from it. The underside of the chest and stomach were covered with white fur. Most of the time, the tip of the tail and a small piece of fur above the crevice were also white, the so-called "crown spot".

use

The Westerwald beef was used for both milk and meat production and as a draft animal .

The Westerwald was characterized by poor soils and a rough climate, so that the agricultural yields remained low. In addition, the division of inheritance prevailed , so that numerous small businesses emerged. In the early 19th century, the region's population was largely impoverished. One spoke of pauperism . In 1899, out of 3933 households with cattle in the Oberwesterwaldkreis, 1004 had only one or two animals and in 1682 three to five cattle. In the four former Nassau districts, between 84 and 92 percent of all dairy cows were still used as draft animals in 1930, which significantly reduced the milk yield.

Breeding history

One of the numerous efforts of the Duchy of Nassau to promote agriculture was the crossbreeding of Murnau-Werdenfels cattle , which was prescribed from 1817 . These attempts were unsuccessful, however, as the cows had difficulty giving birth to the massive calves and often died at birth. From 1820 the newly founded "Agricultural Association in the Duchy of Nassau" took over the efforts to refine cattle. In 1828 the association began breeding traditional cattle from the Westerwald with state funding. This created a herd in which the desired properties were further bred. The calves were given to farmers to improve the livestock population. The breed that was created in this way was given the name "Westerwald cattle".

Independent of this official breeding, many breeders crossed their cattle with Red Holstein breeds in the following years, especially with the Lahn cattle and the Vogelsberg cattle. As early as the second half of the 19th century, the Lahn cattle replaced the Westerwald cattle in the Unterwesterwaldkreis . In the other regions of the Westerwald agricultural associations and administration (via the community bulls) remained with the Westerwald cattle. Opposition to this spread among farmers, which was mostly expressed through arbitrary crossbreeding of Lahn cattle or other breeds, and occasionally also through contradictions against administrative regulations or legally. Domains and large farmers who concentrated on milk and meat production and did not need cows as draft animals moved away from the traditional breed, which was characterized as "starving cattle". The main points of criticism of the farmers were the low weight and the resulting low meat yield, the late milk maturity and the overall low milk yield of the Westerwald cattle.

A herd book that was supposed to increase the milk and meat yield within the breed was only set up for the Westerwald cattle in 1875 by the newly founded "Association for Breeding and Refinement of the Westerwald Cattle Breed", but never before 1904 and was given up again with the First World War .

In the 1930s, the dairy industry began to become more professional across the board, which increased the pressure on higher milk yields that could no longer be achieved with the old breed. From 1937, the Reich Law on the Promotion of Cattle Breeding no longer provided for the breeding of Westerwald cattle. The last pure-bred animals are likely to have been slaughtered shortly after the Second World War.

distribution

In 1925, when the Westerwald cattle were already in decline, statistics recorded animals of the breed in all districts of the Wiesbaden administrative district . Herds of more than 1000 animals existed in the following districts: Neuwied district (4570), Westerburg district (4393), Oberwesterwaldkreis (2717), Dillkreis (2372), Altenkirchen district (1681) and Biedenkopf district (1149).

Special centers of breeding were the places Driedorf, Madenmühle, Rehe, Niederroßbach, Rennerod, Hellenhahn-Schellenberg, Westernohe, Oberrod, Winnen and Gemünden.

Occasionally the animals were also bred in the Rhine Valley to below Cologne and in the Eifel. Crossings in other areas as far as Bohemia are documented, but seem to have been only temporary attempts.

Breeder organization

The "Association of Cattle Breeders" was founded in 1829 under the umbrella of the "Agricultural Association in the Duchy of Nassau". In 1875 the "Association for Breeding and Refinement of the Westerwald Cattle Breed" was established in the former Duchy of Nassau as a branch of the Agricultural Association. An association of the same name was founded in the Rhine Province in 1880. The association in the former Duchy of Nassau disintegrated shortly before the turn of the century after irregularities in the allocation of funds and embezzlement. It was not until 1910 that new breeders' associations were formed under the influence of Paul Schulze-Rößler (1867–1947), animal breeding inspector at the Wiesbaden Chamber of Agriculture, but they could no longer prevent the decline of the Westerwald cattle.

Breeding shows of Westerwald cattle with awards were held in Emmerichenhain from 1829 to 1855 , then in Bad Marienberg and later in other places in the region. From around 1890, there were only breeding shows at irregular intervals.

literature

  • Hans Walther: Investigations into the growth and formation of the body shape of Westerwald cattle under the influence of grazing on ameliorated and fertilized municipal pastures and non-meliorated and fertilized pastures . Glagow Verlag, Giessen 1931
  • Hermann Josef Roth: The Westerwald cattle. In: Landesgemeinschaft Naturschutz und Umwelt Nordrhein-Westfalen eV (Hrsg.): Old and endangered domestic animal breeds. Arnsberg-Hüsten 2005, ISBN 3-00-014975-9 , pp. 77-87

source

  • The Westerwald beef - A "special article" of the Westerwald. Text accompanying the exhibition "The Westerwald cattle - a Westerwald domestic animal breed". Westerwald Landscape Museum, Hachenburg 2007
  • Hubert Wagenbach: From three to one-use cattle. In: Yearbook for the Limburg-Weilburg district 2002, pp. 131–135.