Heritage Shorthorn (Native)

Shorthorn-type cattle appear in records from the 1500s in County Durham in northern England, which is why the breed was long called the Durham. Dutch imports were crossed onto native stock and selected for both meat and milk. In the late 1700s Charles and Robert Colling applied Robert Bakewell's new selective breeding methods to them, and the breed's fame followed a traveling exhibit: the Durham Ox, calved in 1796, weighed over 3,500 pounds at ten years old. Red, white and roan Shorthorns dominate the farm art of the period.

The Shorthorn was the first breed anywhere to keep a herd book. George Coates compiled it in 1822, and every Heritage Shorthorn alive traces back into it.

The cattle crossed the Atlantic early. Shorthorns were first imported to America in the late 1700s, with the largest numbers arriving after 1820, and they went west with the settlers as the do-everything farm cow. In the early 1900s the breed formally split into beef and dairy types; the old dual-purpose line inside the dairy book became the Milking Shorthorn designated Native, the population The Livestock Conservancy now calls the Heritage Shorthorn (Native).

Cows weigh 1,200 to 1,400 lb and bulls around 2,000. The colors are red, white, roan or a mixture of the three, sometimes with extensive speckling, and most of the cattle are horned, by The Livestock Conservancy's account; the Heritage Shorthorn Society says horned Shorthorns are now in limited supply because of the polled movement. Some carry A2 genetics.

Docile and calm, with a novice experience rating from the Conservancy. This is one of the easier breeds on the Conservation Priority List to live with.

All three of the old jobs still work: beef, milk and draft. The cows are excellent mothers, fertile, easy calving and long-lived, and the breed is forage efficient enough to suit grass-based dairying.

Grass, mostly. The Livestock Conservancy says these strains perform well in grass-based dairying because they are forage efficient, and its breed chart rates them for temperate climates. The cows are excellent mothers, fertile and easy calving, and stay productive much longer than most modern dairy cattle. The Heritage Shorthorn Society's advice for grass-fed herds is to buy for rumen capacity, the volume to turn grass and hay into meat or milk.

The society also lists what to check before buying: test status for four genetic defects, tibial hemimelia, pulmonary hypoplasia with anasarca, digital subluxation and myostatin double muscling, which are uncommon in strictly Heritage lines but can do real damage if a carrier bull is used; vaccination status; and, for a herd sire, a reproductive exam. It warns that a negative Johne's test on a young animal does not clear it if it comes from an infected herd.

Threatened on the Conservation Priority List. The Native designation exists because most modern Shorthorns, beef and dairy alike, carry outside blood; animals identified as pure, old-line, dual-purpose stock by the American Milking Shorthorn Society are designated Native in its registry, and that remnant is what the Conservancy tracks.

The Native designation is the distinction you are buying. The Native or Heritage population is registered separately precisely because it traces into the original 1822 herd book, and this catalog also lists Shorthorn and Milking Shorthorn. The three are not interchangeable, so check which herd book an animal is recorded in before you bid.

The American Milking Shorthorn Society grants the Native designation, and a Heritage Shorthorn Society also works with the old-line cattle. Ask for the registration paper and check the designation on it, not just the breed name.

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