Salers

The breed was improved in the nineteenth century by Ernest Tyssandier d'Escous, and it never left its mountains so much as exported from them: about 300,000 head remain in France, with breeding stock gone out to more than 25 countries. At home it is still a dairy animal as much as a beef one; its milk goes into the AOC cheeses Cantal and Salers.

Cows run 1,540 to 1,650 lb at about 55 inches, in a thick mahogany red or, less commonly, black coat, under long, lyre-shaped, light-colored horns; a small percentage are naturally polled. They have hard black hooves and a reputation for soundness on rough country.

The French dairy history shows in the figures: a Salers cow gives almost 6,600 lb of fat-rich milk a year, every year of a long working life, which is where the maternal reputation comes from.

The American Salers Association says its breeders are committed to producing quiet, easy-to-handle breeding stock, and it publishes a docility EPD, which predicts differences in yearling temperament on a scale from 1, docile, to 6, extremely aggressive. Ask for a line's docility figures, and see the herd worked before you buy.

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.

What they are used for in North America is calving ease and milk. Salers have among the lowest calving difficulty rates recorded for a continental breed, which is unusual for cattle of their size, and the cows milk well enough to be sought as a maternal cross. In France they also feed a veal cross with the Charolais.

They were built for temperature extremes, altitude and rough ground, and they keep those capacities: this is a breed for hard country and long walks to water, not one that needs it easy.

The trade is color. The dark red does not fit the black-hided programs that dominate the American feeder market, though black and polled lines exist within the breed. Ask the American Salers Association registration, the line's disposition history, and whether the genetics you are buying are horned red or polled black, because the market treats them differently.

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