Hereford

Selective breeding began in the mid-1700s among a few Herefordshire families, starting some decades before Robert Bakewell made improvement famous. The breed reached Ireland by 1775 and the United States in 1817, when Henry Clay imported the first ones; larger importations began in the 1840s with a herd at Albany, New York.

The polled line began in 1889 as an American selection, got its own association in 1910, and merged back under one association with the horned population in 1995. By 2023 the breed stood at over 7 million head across 62 countries.

Cows run about 1,500 lb and 55 inches, bulls about 2,350 lb and 60 inches. The pattern is fixed: red body, white face. They run both horned and polled.

They are famously easy to handle, they hold condition on modest forage, and the cows are long-lived.

Docility is one of the traits the American Hereford Association says Hereford genetics bring to a cow herd, alongside fertility and feed efficiency. A Cornell Cooperative Extension educator who keeps Hereford blood in his own herd gives the same reason in plainer terms: the animals are quite docile and easy to work with. The association does not publish a docility EPD; its 2016 EPD guide said research toward one was under way.

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.

Grass beef, and crossbreeding. The classic American commercial cross, the black baldy, is a Hereford bull on Angus cows and has been a fixture of the industry for the same reasons for a century.

The trade is the white face itself. Unpigmented skin around the eye burns and is associated with a higher rate of pinkeye and eye cancer, so in high-sun country pigmentation is worth selecting for, and the same white skin on the udder can sunburn. Beyond the sun problem, the breed asks little: modest forage and ordinary facilities.

Horned and polled are both registered by the American Hereford Association, one book since 1995, so the paperwork will not tell you which you are getting; look at the animal, and price the dehorning work if it is a horned line.

In high-sun country, ask about eye pigmentation in the line. It is heritable, it is selectable, and it is the difference between a cheap cow and a vet bill.

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