🇦🇹 The cattle breeds of Austria

Austria treats a set of cattle breeds as wholly or partly its own. Eleven of them still exist and nine have died out, and for several the ancestry is tangled or thinly recorded. What the country keeps is a list of local lines rather than one national type.

• Austria counts some breeds as entirely its own and others as only partly so.
• Eleven breeds on the national list are still in existence; nine are extinct.
• Several of the breeds have tangled or barely recorded histories.
• Inclusion on the list does not mean a breed is mainly or only Austrian.

Cattle in Austria

The cattle recognised as Austrian are a mixed set. Some are counted as entirely native, others only in part, and for a number of them the ancestry is either complicated or thinly recorded. What the country holds is a roll of breeds rather than one national type, split into lines that still exist and lines that have gone. The names tie each breed to a particular valley, mountain or district, so the surviving stock is a spread of local cattle rather than a single herd. Qualifying for the roll does not mean a breed started here, or stayed here alone.

The breeds

The recognised stock falls into two groups: eleven breeds that are still with us and nine that are extinct. Several of the eleven have murky or hard-to-trace backgrounds, so the list is a statement about where a breed is kept and claimed, not a proof of where it began. Some entries are wholly native to the country; others are only partly so.

Today

Eleven of the breeds are still present and nine are not, so a little over half of the recognised stock remains. Keeping a roll of this kind lets a country keep count of which lines are still on farms and which have stopped being bred.