Pustertaler Sprinzen

What do Pustertaler Sprinzen cattle look like?

These are medium-to-large horned cattle of the eastern Alps. A grown cow stands about 130 cm at the withers, the ridge between the shoulder blades, and weighs 500 to 650 kg; bulls reach roughly 140 cm and 800 to 900 kg. The coat is white at base, with chestnut-brown, lighter brown or black patches laid over the flanks; along their rims the dark colour breaks into small speckles, a scheme keepers call finched or colour-sided. The horns are short, spreading outwards or angled ahead, and both sexes carry them. The breed serves as a dual-purpose animal, giving both milk and beef.

Where does the Pustertaler Sprinzen come from?

The breed's home is the Puster Valley and its side valleys, together with the eastern end of the Isarco, which German speakers call the Eisacktal. When the valley railway opened in the 1860s, dealers bought animals in bulk at Bruneck and railed them over the Alps, above all to the neighbourhood of Vienna, where buyers called them Wiener Kuh, the Viennese cow, and paid well for their milk. A first herd book dates to 1900. Sales drained the best stock, and replacements bought cheaply from Carinthia dulled the type. War and the transfer of South Tyrol to Italy in 1919 cut numbers further; the book lapsed after 1920, and a 1927 decree ending bull inspection brought near-collapse. A revival scheme ran from 1954 to 1967.

What the Pustertaler Sprinzen is known for

Fame reached the Pustertaler through the milking pail. In the railway age its milk was valued so highly that buyers north of the Alps paid premium prices for live animals, and that trade spread the breed's name far beyond its home valleys. The other signature is the coat: a clean white ground with dark flank patches whose edges scatter into speckles, a pattern few other European breeds share. Scarcity is now part of its identity; Italy's agriculture ministry lists it among its smallest national populations.

How the Pustertaler Sprinzen is bred and kept

The breeding record is patchy. 1900 brought the first herd book, and breeders' societies formed within a few years, but the book closed after 1920 and the ending of official bull checks in 1927 let the breed fall apart. Between 1954 and 1967 a recovery drive registered roughly 300 cows and 500 calves. In 1985 the small regional breeds of Italy, this one among them, gained ministry protection, and from 1991 the register has been handled by the AIA, the national breeders' body. A 2001 genetic comparison found the Barà of Piedmont so close to the Pustertaler that from 2002 the two have been kept in one register, which lifted the counted population sharply.

What the Pustertaler Sprinzen is kept for

Milk and beef, in equal share: the breed is classed as dual-purpose. Historically the milk was the prize; droves went north by rail from Bruneck in the 1860s to supply the Vienna trade, where the cattle were called Wiener Kuh and fetched high prices. The Barà side carried its own value around Turin and Cuneo, where it numbered several thousand head before the merger. Today herds are reared not only in Italy but in Austria, Germany and South Africa, a spread unusual for so small a breed.

The land and climate of the Pustertaler Sprinzen

The breed took shape in the valleys of the eastern Alps: the Puster Valley, its tributary side valleys, and the eastern reach of the Isarco. That is mountain farming country, where cattle graze valley meadows and hillside grass. Herds now also stand beyond the Alps, in Austria and Germany, and in South Africa, where the breed is reared as well.

Who keeps the Pustertaler Sprinzen

Keeping them were the farming families of the Puster Valley and the Isarco, who sold stock by the hundred once the railway arrived. The trade had a cost at home: animals shipped north were often replaced with cheaper cattle from Carinthia, which dulled the local type. Later, breeder societies and then national registration bodies took charge of the breed's affairs.

Related breeds and crosses

The closest kin is the Barà, a barred coat type kept around Turin and Cuneo in Piedmont; its name comes from the dialect word barrato, meaning barred. A genetic comparison in 2001 found the two nearly identical, and they have shared a register since 2002. In the nineteenth century Carinthian cattle were often bought to stand in for Pustertalers sent north, and Viennese buyers gave the breed the name Wiener Kuh.

Numbers, conservation and the herd book

Counts tell a story of fall and partial recovery. In 2002, before the merger with the Barà, estimates ran from about 200 animals to 635, with fewer than a hundred registered cows. The Barà added several thousand head, and by 2009 the combined total stood at 3,321. Since 1985 the Italian agriculture ministry has shielded this breed as one of sixteen small national populations of narrow spread, and since 1991 the AIA keeps the register.

Questions people ask about Pustertaler Sprinzen

Good reading and sources

• Pustertaler Sprinzen on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data