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Saturday 24 May 2014

The Amazing Variety Of Beef Cattle Genetics Across The Globe

By Marci Glover


Cattle is a collective term for a diverse group of large mammals with cloven hooves and, often, with horns. Toward the end of the first decade of the 21st century, beef cattle genetics signaled the first mapping of a livestock genome. These animals are as much at home on the farm pulling plows as they are lounging on the range to provide meet and dairy products for a hungry public.

The earliest known herd of cattle numbered about 80 in members and dwelt in Turkey. Today, this modest population has mushroomed into 1.3 billion beasts across the globe, about four times the entire population of the United States. In addition to meat, milk, butter and cheese, other products made from these highly useful animals are leather and fuel (derived from dung).

The Angus breed comes from Scotland in the counties of Angus and Aberdeenshire. These animals are polled, which means they do not have horns. They are solid in color, either black or red, and they have red or black udders, although this part of the animal may also be white. Black Angus are the most common breed in the United States. They are raised for their meat, dairy products and they are used as draft animals.

France gave us the Limousin breed. Raised initially as working animals, about two hundred years ago they were discovered to produce lean, tender, high quality beef. One reason people like to breed these cows is because they give birth to small calves. This quality means they provide for easier births.

The Wagyu breeds come from Japan. Their meat is intensely marbled with highly desirable unsaturated fat. Such high quality beef attracts a highly desirable price tag to match. Sake and beer are sometimes added to their feed to aid digestion and increase appetite in humid conditions. This does not appear to be reflected in the taste of the beef.

The beefalo were engineered from the American bison, or buffalo, and plain old garden variety domestic animals. The intention was to cross breed them to yield an animal that would comfortably withstand cold, hard winters. The down side to this was a reduction in the numbers of the rapidly dwindling American buffalo. There are now only four herds left, only one of which has not been tainted with the disease, brucellosis. These animals live in South Dakota.

Belgian Blue beasts actually have a mottled sort of blue hair, tinged with grey. They can vary along a spectrum from white to black. Heavily muscled, they readily convert their feed to lean muscle tissue that is desired for its reduced fat content.

The Brangus breed is a robust cross between Angus and Brahman. England, in the United Kingdom, gave us the Hereford cow, which has migrated to no fewer than 50 countries around the world. Lowline cows come from Australia. These animals are small in nature, without being dwarf specimens. This characteristic makes them perfect for children to display at county fairs and other livestock shows.




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