Beef breeds

Shape and growth

A beef animal is judged on how fast it grows, how well it converts feed, how much of the carcass is saleable meat and how good that meat is. The type is broad and muscular, with a wide back and full thighs. The British breeds, Angus, Hereford and Shorthorn, matured early on grass and became the basis of ranching in the Americas and Australia. The large Continental breeds, Charolais, Limousin, Simmental and Blonde d'Aquitaine, many of them former draught cattle, came into wide use from the 1960s for their size and lean growth.

Zebu beef in the tropics

Where it is hot, humid and full of ticks, European beef cattle struggle and zebu do well. Brazil holds one of the largest commercial cattle herds in the world, and most of its beef cattle are Nelore or Nelore crosses. The Nelore takes its name from Nellore, the old district of Andhra Pradesh where Ongole cattle were bred, and the first animals reached Brazil in the nineteenth century. In the American South the Brahman was built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from Indian Gir, Kankrej, Ongole and Krishna Valley stock.

Double muscling and marbling

Two lines of selection pull in different directions. The Belgian Blue and the Piedmontese carry variants of the myostatin gene that cause double muscling: very heavy, lean muscle with little fat. At the other end, Wagyu and Hanwoo are bred for intramuscular fat, the fine white flecks called marbling. Most commercial beef in the world comes from crosses that sit somewhere between, often a British or Continental bull on a hardy local or zebu-cross cow.

A note on India

Cattle slaughter is restricted or banned in most Indian states, and the cow is held sacred by many Hindus. India's large meat export trade is mostly in buffalo meat, not cattle. Native Indian breeds are therefore kept for milk, work, dung and the breeding of bullocks. Yet several of them, above all the Ongole, Gir and Kankrej, became the founders of the beef herds of Brazil, the United States and Australia, which makes India one of the deep roots of tropical beef breeding.

Worth knowing

• Aberdeen Angus: Black, polled Scottish breed, the most widely used beef breed in many countries
• Hereford: Red with a white face, an early-maturing grass breed from Herefordshire
• Charolais: Large white French breed used for terminal crossing
• Nelore: Brazilian zebu from Ongole stock, the mainstay of Brazil's herd
• American Brahman: Grey or red zebu breed built in Texas from Indian cattle
• Wagyu: Japanese cattle bred for marbling
• Limousin: Golden-red French breed known for lean growth
• Belgian Blue: Double-muscled Belgian breed

Good to know

• Beef herds on range are often handled only a few times a year, so calm handling and good yards make those days safer.
• Body condition at calving matters more than weight alone for the cow's next pregnancy.
• Zebu and zebu-cross herds need less help against ticks and heat than British breeds in the tropics.

Sources and further reading

• Beef cattle on Wikipedia
• Nelore, Wikipedia
• American Brahman, Wikipedia
• Aberdeen Angus, Wikipedia
• Cattle, Encyclopaedia Britannica