Dutch Belted

The first US import came in 1838 through the American consul in Holland. P.T. Barnum brought some over in 1840 for his circus, billed as rare and aristocratic, then found they outmilked anything he had and moved them to his farm. The Dutch Belted Cattle Association of America formed in 1886.

The near-loss came later. By 1950 only four or five herds remained in the Netherlands, and in the 1970s the breed neared extinction worldwide; American semen was used to rebuild the European population. The USDA dairy buy-out of the 1980s then took many US purebreds to slaughter. The Livestock Conservancy managed the association's registry from 1993 until 2013, when the association took it back.

Cows run 900 to 1,500 lb and bulls up to 2,000. The build is the triple wedge of a dairy cow, the horns are long and curve slightly upward, and the belt is white and complete, beginning just behind the shoulder on a black or, less often, red body.

The milk tests 3.5 to 5.5 percent butterfat.

Docile, intelligent and friendly is the Conservancy's summary, with an experience rating of novice to intermediate. That is one reason the breed suits family farms: these are cattle someone will be handling twice a day.

What kept the breed was the milk. It was selected to turn good pasture into 12,000 to 15,000 pounds of rich milk a lactation on very little grain, which makes it a grazier's dairy cow rather than a confinement one.

A few are worked as oxen; the Conservancy lists some draft use. But the breed is a dairy cow first, and a grazing dairy cow at that.

Good pasture, and not much added to it. The breed was selected to milk off grass with little grain supplementation, so it fits a pasture-based dairy and wastes its main advantage in a confinement string. The cows are long-lived.

The Dutch Belted is ranked Critical on the Conservation Priority List. DAD-IS counted 464 registered animals in the United States in 2016, against a total population of roughly 1,500 a few years earlier, and the Conservancy's own line is that the breed remains extremely rare and in need of new stewards.

If you are buying for the belt, look past it. A wide, even belt is the show standard and it says nothing about how a cow milks.

Registration runs through the Dutch Belted Cattle Association of America, the same body founded in 1886. Ask for papers and a production record; with a dairy breed this rare, a documented udder is worth more than a perfect belt.

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