Chianina

Chianina cattle have been raised in Tuscany, Umbria and Lazio for at least 2,200 years; the Roman writer Columella, around 55 AD, described the Umbrian cattle as huge and white. The Italian herd book dates from 1933.

They were draft animals for most of that history, which is why they are built tall and long rather than deep and thick.

The coat is white over black skin, with a black muzzle, switch and horn tips; cows stand 61 to 65 inches and bulls 63 to 67, at 1,760 to 2,200 and 2,650 to 3,300 pounds respectively. In Italy the breed's beef is the traditional raw material of bistecca alla fiorentina.

The American Chianina Association's position is that the breed is docile. Its long-range plan sets out to reinforce that message with pictures of children working with and showing the cattle, as part of an effort to improve how commercial cattlemen see the breed. The history gives it some support: Oklahoma State University notes that good dispositions were wanted in the draft animals the breed was built on.

Size is the handling fact. Texas A&M's guidance for youth show projects lists Chianina with the Continental breeds it recommends for older, stronger and more experienced handlers, and these are among the largest cattle in the world.

Cornell's general guidance on beef cattle safety holds here too: a cow with a newborn calf can be very aggressive, so avoid walking between her and the calf, and no bull can be trusted.

In North America they are used almost entirely as a terminal cross. A Chianina bull adds frame, length of carcass and lean growth to smaller British-breed cows, and the crossbred calf carries far more of that value than a purebred would.

Room, feed and facilities sized for the animal. Ontario's agriculture ministry describes weights up to 4,000 lb and mature bulls six feet tall, so chutes, gates and trailers have to fit. It has white hair over black skin, and the same source says the breed adapts well to hot climates.

On calving the sources point different ways. Ontario notes the breed for calving ease, but a 2016 USDA study ranks Chiangus-sired calves, from a Chianina and Angus composite, among the most likely to need help at birth, and USDA's 2024 across-breed tables put them at 88.4 lb at birth against 84.7 for Angus. Ask which you are buying, and what the bull's calving record is.

The trade is that almost nothing about a purebred suits a commercial cow herd. They are late maturing, they marble poorly, mature cow size is enormous, and the white coat with black skin is a look the feeder market does not reward.

The American Chianina Association registers both fullbloods and the percentage cattle that do most of the breed's American work; read the percentage on the papers, and if you are buying a bull, size your cows and your facilities to what he will actually weigh.

Recent sale prices on HoofnHorn, where there are any, are further down this page.