The Belarus Harness Horse, be, Беларускі запражны конь, translit= Bielaruski zapražny koń, is a

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...

ian breed of

draught horse A draft horse (US), draught horse (UK) or dray horse (from the Old English ''dragan'' meaning "to draw or haul"; compare Dutch ''dragen'' and German ''tragen'' meaning "to carry" and Danish ''drage'' meaning "to draw" or "to fare"), less oft ...

. It was bred for use in agriculture, and is also used to produce

mare's milk Mare milk is milk lactated by female horses, known as mares, to feed their foals. It is rich in whey protein, polyunsaturated fatty acids and vitamin C, and is a key ingredient in kumis. In several European countries, including Germany, it is so ...

and

horsemeat Horse meat forms a significant part of the culinary traditions of many countries, particularly in Eurasia. The eight countries that consume the most horse meat consume about 4.3 million horses a year. For the majority of humanity's early existen ...

History

The Belorusskaya was bred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, principally in the western part of what is now Belarus, which was for much of the twentieth century the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. The aim was to create an agricultural

adapted to local conditions, capable of working on sandy, swampy or woodland terrain. Local mares, many of them of Polesian type, were put to imported stallions. The majority of these were of the Norwegian Dølehest draught breed, but there was also some Ardennes and Brabant influence. By the 1980s the breeding programme was close to completion; two volumes of the stud-book had been issued, in which 616 mares and 135 stallions were recorded. In 1980 the total breed population was some 93000, of which almost 28000 were

pure-bred Purebreds are "cultivated varieties" of an animal species achieved through the process of selective breeding. When the lineage of a purebred animal is recorded, that animal is said to be " pedigreed". Purebreds breed true-to-type which means the ...

History

Characteristics

Use

References