The Harzer Rotvieh is a unicoloured red cattle breed from the
Harz in
Germany. They serve the purposes of providing
milk,
beef and draught power. The name means "red cattle of the Harz".
History
This cattle breed stemmed from the red cattle breeds of South and Middle Germany and traced probably back to unicoloured red Germanic-Celtic Cattle. Out of them a local cattle breed developed under the tough conditions of the Harz mountain range.
In the 1950s this cattle breed was crossed with
Danish Red bulls to increase milk yields. Later they crossed in
Angeln cattle
The Angeln is a breed of cattle originally from Angeln in Schleswig-Holstein where they are first mentioned around 1600. however some people think that they may have existed for over 5000 years. Breed management has been practiced since 1830. An ...
. Since 1980 the Harzer Rotvieh has been only a variety of the
Angeln breed.
In the middle of the 1980s they took remaining animals of the old Harzer Rotvieh (that were already mixed) to synthesize a new population of "Red Cattle, breeding type upland cattle", the
Rotes Höhenvieh
The Rotes Höhenvieh is a breed of red cattle from the Central Uplands of Germany. It was created in 1985 as a merger of the few remaining examples of a number of closely similar regional breeds of upland red cattle. Reconstruction of the bre ...
.
Breed farms
The Harzer Rotvieh is bred on only a few farms:
Mountainfarmer Wolfgang Beuse on the Farm of „Klein-Tirol“, 20 cows, 1 bullThielecke, a farmer at the foot of Brocken in Tanne
Sources
* Association Harz Cows: ''Harz heardsmen, Harz Cows in history, present and future'', Clausthal-Zellerfeld, 1998
External links
Cattle breeds originating in Germany
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