Hereford

What do Hereford cattle look like?

The Hereford is a large beef animal. Cows stand about 140 cm at the withers, the ridge between the shoulder blades, and weigh around 675 kg; bulls reach about 152 cm and 1,075 kg. The coat is red with white, and the white face is the breed's best-known mark. Most animals grow horns, but naturally hornless (polled) cattle are common and have their own recorded lines. The colour took time to settle: eighteenth-century Herefordshire cattle were solid red apart from a white tail tuft, much like the North Devon and Sussex breeds, and early crossed herds ran from yellow through grey to light brown before the modern pattern became general during the nineteenth century.

Where does the Hereford come from?

The breed comes from Herefordshire, a county in England's West Midlands. From the mid-eighteenth century onwards a few local families selected their stock, beginning decades before Robert Bakewell did his celebrated breeding work. Through the late 1700s and early 1800s other cattle, mainly Shorthorns, were brought in to shape a new draught and beef type whose colour at first varied widely. The white face was well set by about 1800, and the full modern colour during the nineteenth century. The cattle travelled early: Ireland had them by 1775, and the American politician Henry Clay sent a few to Kentucky about 1817, with bigger shipments following in the 1840s. Today's American Hereford descends from a herd founded in 1840 at Albany, New York. Australia had the breed before 1850, Argentina from 1858.

What the Hereford is known for

The breed's documented strengths are old-fashioned ones. Herds kept apart from crossing have held on to the hardiness and thriftiness of the earlier type, doing well on modest keep, and these Traditional cattle are now treated as a minority line worth conserving for their genes. The modern Hereford is better known for its useful shape and its spread than for any recorded temper. It does have weak points that keepers watch: eye cancer appears in countries of constant bright sun, and the breed's light pigment round the eye and on the udder leaves it open to sun damage.

How the Hereford is bred and kept

The breed was built by selection and by crossing: Shorthorn blood, among others, was used to add wanted characters, which changed the breed as a whole. Some herds were never crossed, and their descendants, the Traditional Herefords, are now valued for genetic conservation. In the United States the Iowa rancher Warren Gammon saw the worth of a natural hornless mutation and opened a registry with eleven polled cattle; this became a separate breed from 1889, gained its own association in 1910, and has been recorded together with the horned American Hereford since 1995. Australians know the hornless sort as the Poll Hereford. Breed societies in more than a dozen countries now keep the breed's books.

What the Hereford is kept for

The Hereford is kept above all for beef. Its first shapers wanted an animal that could both work and fatten, and draught use was part of the early type, though today it is thought of first as a meat animal. The cattle are performers too: they feature strongly at agricultural shows in Britain and beyond. By 2023 herds in Uruguay, Brazil and Chile each numbered more than 100,000 head, showing how far the white face has travelled with the meat trade.

The land and climate of the Hereford

The Hereford was made in the farmland of Herefordshire in western England and is still seen in that countryside. From there it has settled across more than sixty countries, in Europe from Ireland and Iberia to Scandinavia and the Baltic, throughout the Americas, and in Australia and New Zealand. That range takes in lands of constant strong sun, where its pale eye pigment needs watching, as well as cooler northern pasture.

Who keeps the Hereford

The Hereford belongs to working farmers rather than to any one community. Its first formers were a handful of Herefordshire families in the eighteenth century. In North America the early movers were notable men: Henry Clay, the Kentucky politician, brought the first few animals over about 1817, and the rancher Warren Gammon of Iowa later created the hornless registry. Today the breed's affairs are run by member societies, among them bodies in Estonia, Hungary, Portugal, Romania, Paraguay, South Africa and New Zealand, which shows how ordinary farmers across many lands have taken it up.

The Hereford at fairs and festivals

The Hereford is a show-ring animal as much as a paddock one. It features strongly at agricultural shows, where breed classes put the deep red coat and the white face on display. In Herefordshire itself the cattle remain a familiar part of the working countryside as well as the show ground.

Keeping Hereford cattle

A few health problems are recorded in the breed. Eye cancer, or ocular squamous cell carcinoma, occurs especially where sunlight is strong and in animals with little red pigment round the eye; studies in the United States and Canada found that pigment on the eyelid and the surface of the eye is heritable and likely to lower the risk. Vaginal prolapse is heritable too, although feeding may influence it. The pale skin of the udder sunburns easily. Dwarfism, caused by an autosomal recessive gene, shows up equally in heifers and bulls, so it is not sex-linked.

Related breeds and crosses

The old Herefordshire cow closely resembled the North Devon and Sussex breeds of southern England. Shorthorns were among the cattle used to create the modern type. The best-known offshoot is the Polled Hereford, a hornless American line called the Poll Hereford in Australia; since 1995 polled and horned American cattle have been recorded under one association. The Traditional Hereford, kept uncrossed, is the other distinct branch.

Numbers, conservation and the herd book

Numbers are high. In 2023 the populations reported by 62 countries came to more than seven million head, and DAD-IS classed the breed as not at risk that year. Three South American countries, Uruguay, Brazil and Chile, each reported more than 100,000 animals. Breed societies serve members across Europe, South America, New Zealand and South Africa, as well as in the older strongholds of Britain, Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia and Argentina. One minority line, the Traditional Hereford, is kept separately as a resource for genetic conservation.

From the Hereford

Questions people ask about Hereford

Good reading and sources

• Hereford cattle on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data