Horro

What do Horro cattle look like?

Horro cattle are a sanga type, and animals within a herd look much alike in build and colour. They are brown. A hump of fat sits over the shoulders and can reach a fair size, the feature that marks them as humped stock. Cows and bulls are not kept apart as a rule: most animals are worked and mated in the same herd. Breeders who want tighter control do hold bulls and sires separately. Working bulls are usually culled near seven years of age, and sires near thirteen.

Where does the Horro come from?

Horro cattle belong to the Horo Guduru Welega Zone in the west of Ethiopia, and the breed's other names, Wallega and Wollega, are drawn from that same district. The western highlands are their home ground. The breed is classed as sanga, the African cattle formed from a mixing of humpless taurine stock with humped zebu animals. Its status was entered in the international database DAD-IS by 2006, and a count of livestock was carried out in Horro district in 2007.

What the Horro is known for

The animals are asked to work and to breed at the same time, and the farming system around them is built on that. Health is the weak point. Parasites, bloat, foot-and-mouth disease and pasteurellosis are all named as causes of death among livestock in the district. Most farmers meet illness with two things at once, calling on a veterinary service and using remedies of their own that have long been practised locally. The cows' milk is safe to drink, though it usually tests above the accepted acidity level and its bacteriological quality is poor.

How the Horro is bred and kept

Mating among farmer-owned cattle is left largely to chance. Animals graze together on communal land, and that shared pasture is where most conception happens. The same herd normally works as oxen and breeds, though a breeder may set bulls and sires aside in a separate group. Culling follows practical lines: a bull is removed at about seven years, a sire at about thirteen. Old age, a drop or failure in breeding success, illness, or the need to sell or slaughter an animal are the reasons given. Overgrazing, too many animals and crop fields pushing into the pasture have shrunk the common grazing, so herds meet less often and find less to eat.

What the Horro is kept for

The first job of a Horro animal is pulling: ploughing and other farm work, with milk as the second return. Meat comes alongside, listed with draught and dairy rather than leading the list. Manure is gathered for the fields, and the cattle are also used to thresh grain, treading the cut crop. Some cows are kept purely for breeding. Milk from these cows can be drunk without harm, but it usually tests higher in acid than the accepted level and carries a poor load of bacteria, so care after milking matters.

The land and climate of the Horro

These cattle live in the western highlands of Ethiopia, a farming country of crop fields and shared pasture. Grazing is communal, and the herds move over ground held in common rather than fenced paddocks. That common land is under pressure. Too many animals on the same ground, overgrazing, and crop fields spreading into what used to be pasture have all cut the area available for grazing. When herds no longer meet on the same grass, two things follow: fewer chances for animals to breed, and less feed to carry them through.

Who keeps the Horro

Horro cattle are kept by small farmers and breeders in and around Horro district, people who grow crops as well as keeping stock. Their animals pull the plough, supply milk, leave manure for the fields, and tread out the harvested grain at threshing time. Each farmer owns his or her own cattle, but the herds graze together on common land. Breeders are the more careful group, holding bulls and sires of their own and deciding when to cull. In sickness, the veterinary clinic and home remedies are used side by side.

Custom and folk tradition

Herding here runs on shared ground and knowledge passed down locally. Cattle graze on common pasture, and that meeting of herds is the long-standing way the district's stock has been bred. Threshing is a shared job too, with cattle treading the cut grain. Farmers describe their own long-used treatments as part of the answer to disease, used alongside the veterinary clinic. The custom is under strain: as crop land grows and grazing land shrinks, the common pasture that held the system together grows smaller each year, and with it the old ways of keeping and moving cattle.

Keeping Horro cattle

Feeding is by grazing, mostly on common land, with crop residues in the mix at threshing time. Handlers work their animals as oxen and keep bulls apart when they want to control breeding. A bull is culled near seven years and a sire near thirteen, or sooner if age, failing fertility or illness demands it. Sickness is common: parasites, bloat, foot-and-mouth disease and pasteurellosis all take animals. Farmers usually treat with a veterinary service and their own remedies together.

Related breeds and crosses

Horro sits within the sanga group, the African cattle that came out of a meeting between humped zebu animals and humpless taurine ones. It is one of the local cattle populations of the Ethiopian western highlands. The alternative names Wallega and Wollega describe the same animals, not different sorts.

Numbers, conservation and the herd book

Horro cattle were reported as not at risk of genetic erosion in 2006, the listing entered in the international database DAD-IS. A survey of livestock in Horro district in 2007 put the cattle count at about 47,700 head, a figure covering all the district's cattle rather than this breed on its own. Breeding stock stays with the farmers and breeders who own it, and the choices about which animals to keep and which to cull are made within those herds.

From the Horro

Questions people ask about Horro

Good reading and sources

• Horro (cattle) on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data