Bovine Breeding in Great Britain

The British breeding , severely marked with the change of Millénaire by the epizooty of ESB has not been less one of most influential for three centuries, as well in interbreeding as in export of its more beautiful reproducers.

History

Origin of the races

The settlement of the British Isles was done by successive arrivals of bovines of various origins.

Celtic Branch : indigenous or arrived with the Celtic S; these animals form the base of the British bovine population. They constituted dairy manpower very a long time, in particular with the Ayrshire, then with the Jersey and the Guernesey.
white Cows: races have this particular color; (White park, Chillingham or British White). One finds of them traces in Scandinavia, but certain texts attest also presence of bovines white as of the Roman epoch. One can suppose the existence of a breeding of white bulls for the sacrifices with the worship of Jupiter practiced by the Romans. The Blanca Cacereña in Spain comes from this worship.
Branch without horns: it was probably introduced by the Viking S coming from Scandinavia. Following a Draconian selection, it gave very productive meat races.
Branch of the Races of the littoral of the North Sea: it came from Frise with the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes at the beginning of the Moyen-âge. It formed a population which was used as a basis for many crossings. It, to final, gave beef breeds to strong growth or dairy averages. Recently, the holstein of the same origin was been essential to ensure an intensive dairy production.

Evolution of the structures of the breeding

At the end of the the Middle Ages, the firm Movement of the enclosures English landscape. Each stockbreeder selects the young bovines which it will keep like reproducer. The interbreeding between herds which mixed with the pasture ceases. The small farmers who are not owners of their ground, cannot have herd any more; just a cow, and not always. Genetic variability decreases, but causes contrary a selection in closed medium.

The descendants of the great landowners having started the movement are the precursors of the Draconian selection of which one sees the effects today. They discover that well managed agriculture is source of profit important. They initiate, each one at home, of the tests of crossing and selection of the best bulls. The current British races have a standard which dates, for some, of the 18th century. This work with the avant-garde of what is done in the remainder of the Europe, will encourage noble continent to make come from the reproducers to improve their livestock, then to reproduce the same diagrams of selection.

This work all the more bears its fruits, which it is made at the beginning of the industrial revolution: the outlets of agriculture are immense in the cities and the large ports, and the breeding is an activity which requires less labor of the moment when it starts to become expensive. The England is nourished by its colonies, but milk and the meat continue to be produced on the spot.

Breeding in strict pure race

Some rich person landowners left in freedom a herd which was preserved of any external gene introduction. Very old races thus are found representative what could exist with the Middle Ages before the beginning of the selection towards the productivity. (Chillingham, Vaynol)
the insular races were preserved, by prohibition to introduce bovines (this prohibition is always of topicality). Thus, the races Jersey, Guernesey or the Shetland are they in strict autarky since nearly thousand years. They present the original type which can differ from the animals of the same race raised elsewhere.
original Races: stockbreeders make a point of preserving their antique race of any influence. Thus, one finds some breedings of Shorthorn, Hereford, Lincoln red, Red Poll original, preserved crossings with animals or seed come from America. In the long term, these separate breedings will probably lead to the existence of two races to the same name but to the different characteristics.

Exchanges of reproducers

The British reputation of productivity of the races explains easily their introduction in America. There, they will give fertile and productive reproducers to the peg ladders which seek to improve the genetics of their immense herds.

The agribusiness industry which is set up, asks for the supply of an abundant, cheap and regular raw material. The dairy, known races for their excellent butters and cheeses, do not correspond completely to this request. It will be appeased by the arrival of the holstein. Without replacing the races Celtic S, it will ensure the development of the milk industry. To one time when liberalism crushes what resists to him, the British variety of cheeses is reduced very quickly to increasing tonnages of industrial Cheddar cheese.

The crisis

In the sector of the beef breeds, the selection related during several centuries, to the speed of growth and the conformation of the carcasses, giving a tasty meat, but very spotted and coated with fat. At the 20th century, obesity and cholesterol make seek lean meat. The French races, selected for their muscle intended to give oxen of work, become required for the low level of grease of their meat. Some reproducers are imported into Great Britain, but they is especially the outlets of the British reproducers which are closed with export.

At the beginning of the Years 1980, the search for profits encourages the manufacturers of animal flours to reduce the temperature of cooking. It will be the crisis of ESB. Followed by the epidemic of Foot-and-mouth disease and the image of the mass graves of bovines in flame, it will leave a bloodless breeding.

It is not possible that a breeding which guided the world very early by its modern methods of breeding and selection cannot become again an important pole. The people having tasted a steak of Highland or a piece of cheese Stilton will be convinced by it.

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