DAIRY 101 DAIRY CATTLE BREEDS
From Marsden’s Shorthorns to Abondance Story and photos by: Karen Trebilcock
I
f nothing else, you should know your dairy breeds, but do you know where they all come from and why we have them? In 1814, Samuel Marsden imported the first dairy cows to New Zealand. They were Shorthorns, a bull and two cows and came from the New South Wales crown herd, a gift from Governor Lachlan Macquarie. By the 1840s, most European settlements throughout the country had them for their milk, meat and their ability to pull heavy loads. The breed comes from northeast England where the Durham and Teeswater cattle were crossed in the late 1700s. By 1880 there were some 500,000 cattle in NZ and most of them were shorthorns. But the Scots wanted their own cattle and in 1848, the first Ayrshires arrived on the Philip Laing at Port Chalmers near Dunedin. An Ayrshire cow, also on the ship, had died on the way. Ayrshires were first known as Cunninghams, then Dunlops and finally the Ayrshire name was adopted from their home, the County of Ayr in Scotland. They were bred during the 1700s from native cattle which were crossed with other breeds including the Teeswater. Most of these first cattle were black, but the browns and mottled colours the breed is known for started to appear by 1775. In Taranaki, however, they wanted the Jersey cow. NZ’s first pedigree Jerseys were two cows and a bull brought to Whangauni by Thomas Syers in 1862. From Jersey, one of the British Channel Islands, the breed probably came from nearby France and it was first recorded in 1700. Canterbury breeder JCH Grigg was the first to import
86
By 1880 there were some 500,000 cattle in NZ and most of them were Shorthorns. But the Scots wanted their own cattle and in 1848, the first Ayrshires arrived.
Dutch Friesian cattle into NZ in 1884. Named after the Western Friesland region in the Netherlands, they were bred using black cattle from Batavians (Germany) and white animals from Friesland. They are also known as Holstein Friesian with the name Holstein more used in North America. The early NZ herd was bolstered with American Holstein bloodlines in 1902. Soon farmers supplying fresh milk sought out the Friesian breed wanting their ability to produce large volumes while those supplying milk for butter and cheese favoured Jerseys. Breed societies were set up and winning ribbons and cups at shows became important. Selling pedigree cattle supplemented farm incomes and maintained the individual breeds. It was often done by what is called line breeding which is the breeding of close relatives (half-brother to half-sister) to lock in desirable traits. All these breeds were developed using it. On the island of Jersey, from 1789 to 2008, it was forbidden by law to import foreign cattle just so the purity of the Jersey breed could be assured. However, in NZ in the 1990s, we started doing things a little differently. Friesian cattle were getting bigger, Jerseys were getting smaller and were not handling our winters and the flurry of conversions brought new people and new ideas into the industry. We started crossing the two breeds. The reasoning farmers gave, if they were asked, was hybrid vigour. It’s the opposite to line breeding and the idea is, by crossing
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | October 2021
