Japanese Black

What do Japanese Black cattle look like?

The Japanese Black is a beef breed, and its coat is black. Horns grow in both sexes. Bulls stand roughly 145 cm at the withers, the bony ridge between the shoulders, and weigh some 809 kg; cows are smaller, nearer 129 cm and 512 kg. It belongs to the wagyū group of Japanese meat cattle. No second coat colour is recorded for it, and the animal is solidly built, kept on farms in the western half of the country.

Where does the Japanese Black come from?

Cattle reached Japan from China at the same time as wet-rice farming, in the Yayoi period, somewhere in the 100s AD. Until the Meiji Restoration of 1868 the animals worked rather than fed people: they hauled and carried in agriculture, forestry and mining, and their dung fertilised fields. Japan was shut off from the world between 1635 and 1854, so no outside blood entered the herd. About 2,600 imported cattle arrived between 1868 and 1887. Crossing grew common around 1900 and was halted abruptly in 1910, once it was clear the mixed animals were larger and better milkers but worked worse and ate poorer.

What the Japanese Black is known for

The breed is prized above all as a meat animal. Its leaning towards beef rather than milk has deep roots: the early twentieth-century experiments with European blood were dropped when the crosses proved poorer eating and less capable at work than the native stock. The Japanese Black now accounts for the great bulk of the national beef herd, and it is not recorded as a breed in danger.

How the Japanese Black is bred and kept

From 1919 the mixed regional populations were entered in registers and selected as Improved Japanese Cattle. Every prefecture set its own objectives, so a number of sub-types grew up within the breed; the Tajima strain of Hyōgo is one. Four wagyū breeds were settled and recognised in 1944, the Japanese Black among them. European animals helped make it: Braunvieh and Simmental from Switzerland, British Ayrshire, Devon and Shorthorn stock, and Friesian blood from the Netherlands and Germany.

What the Japanese Black is kept for

In the past these cattle were draught animals, working in fields, woods and mines and pulling loads, while their manure went back on the land. Milk was not drunk and meat was not eaten, for cultural and religious reasons. Today the breed is raised for beef. By 1999 the Japanese Black made up about 93% of the country's beef herd.

The land and climate of the Japanese Black

The breed comes from the south-west of Japan. On Kyūshū it was shaped in Oita and Kagoshima. It also developed in Ehime, on Shikoku, and in Kyoto and Hyōgo, the two Kansai prefectures. Five more prefectures of the Chūgoku region, Yamaguchi, Tottori, Shimane, Okayama and Hiroshima, had a part in its making. Its distribution today covers Kansai, Chūgoku, Shikoku and Kyūshū.

Who keeps the Japanese Black

No single herding people is named in connection with the Japanese Black. From 1919 the choice of breeding aims was left to each prefectural administration, and that is how the regional strains appeared. Cattle in old Japan were valuable and expensive, beyond the reach of a poor farmer. The animals are now kept by beef producers in the western part of the country, and the Tajima strain is raised entirely inside Hyōgo Prefecture.

Faith and ritual

Early Japanese cattle keeping was not built around milk or meat. Milk was not part of the diet, and meat was left uneaten for reasons described as cultural and religious. That changed only slowly after the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Before then the animal was valued as property and as a working partner in field, forest and mine rather than as a food source.

The Japanese Black at fairs and festivals

The breed is shown and judged at wagyū events. One such gathering, the tenth Wagyukyoshinkai Shinsa, was held at Sasebo in Nagasaki Prefecture. The Tajima strain is kept and displayed on farms in the north of Hyōgo Prefecture. These shows are the public occasions where cattle are lined up, compared and selected.

Custom and folk tradition

For much of Japanese history the cow was a beast of burden and a maker of manure, not a provider of food. Farmers prized cattle highly, and the price put them out of reach for the poorest households. Neither milk nor meat belonged to ordinary life before the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Working cattle in mines, woods and fields is the older world this breed grew out of.

Related breeds and crosses

The Japanese Black is one of four wagyū breeds. The others are the Japanese Polled, the Japanese Brown and the Japanese Shorthorn. All of them descend from crosses made in the early 1900s between native Japanese cattle and imported European animals. The breeds behind the Japanese Black include Braunvieh, Simmental, Ayrshire, Devon, Shorthorn and Friesian. Within the breed, the Tajima strain of Hyōgo is the best known sub-type.

Numbers, conservation and the herd book

Breed numbers fell sharply across the twentieth century. In 1960 the total was put at more than 1,800,000 head. By 2008 the count was about 707,000. In 1999 the Japanese Black made up roughly 93% of the national beef herd. The FAO assessment of 2007 placed the breed as not at risk. Registration of the improved Japanese cattle, and so of this breed's foundation stock, began in 1919.

Questions people ask about Japanese Black

Good reading and sources

• Japanese Black on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data