Vaynol

What do Vaynol cattle look like?

The Vaynol is a small to medium British breed, similar in looks to the White Park. The body is angular, the rump slopes and the hocks are curved. Horns are upswept, curving outwards and upwards. The coat is usually white with black on the ears, eyelids, nose, hooves and the tips of the horns; some animals are black all over, and some have black socks. Cows may have black teats. Bulls weigh 400 to 450 kg, cows 300 to 350 kg. The breed is classed as upland beef.

Where does the Vaynol come from?

The breed began with a semi-wild herd set up in 1872 in Vaynol Park, North Wales. It stayed there until the owner, Sir Michael Duff, died in 1980 and the estate was sold. The herd then moved to a series of places in England. Numbers were never large, and today's animals come from a small group of founders. By 1989 only one herd remained. Four years later the Rare Breeds Survival Trust bought it and moved it four times before it settled at Temple Newsam Home Farm in West Yorkshire.

What the Vaynol is known for

The Vaynol is described as hardy and thrifty. Its small size means it needs little food, and it suits conservation grazing because it is less likely to poach soft or sensitive ground. It grows slowly and matures late. Formerly considered wild, the cattle are now called semi-feral, since they live in close contact with people. Calves may not finish growing within the usual 30-month period unless they are given extra feed.

How the Vaynol is bred and kept

The Rare Breeds Survival Trust keeps the herdbook and owns most of the breeding animals. Inbreeding is the main danger in so small a breed, so a five-year conservation programme began in 2006 with Temple Newsam to build a genetic profile. Artificial insemination is used; the first calf born this way arrived in 2007, from semen collected 30 years earlier. Breeding away from Temple Newsam was long unsuccessful. Herds were later set up in Lincolnshire and Scotland to spread the risk of disease.

What the Vaynol is kept for

The breed is kept for beef and for leather. It is classed as upland beef, and the meat comes from animals that grow slowly on low inputs. The cattle are also used in conservation grazing on estates, in national parks and on green meadows, where their light frame does less damage to pasture. Because numbers are tiny, the chief work of the breed is simply to survive as a rare line, with herds kept for breeding. Home Farm, where the main herd lives, is open to the public.

The land and climate of the Vaynol

The Vaynol lives on grazing land in Britain. The main herd is kept on large green meadows behind barriers at Temple Newsam, and other groups graze farms in Lincolnshire and Scotland. The cattle suit estates and national parks. They are small and light, so they cope with poor ground and do not cut up soft soils or sensitive swards. Their food needs are low. They take longer than most cattle to reach full size.

Who keeps the Vaynol

The Rare Breeds Survival Trust, a charity that works to save rare farm animals, owns the herdbook and most of the breeding stock. Leeds City Council runs the herd at Temple Newsam Home Farm. A satellite group in Lincolnshire is kept by the farmer and Trust trustee Neville Turner and his wife Maureen on 15 acres of grazing land. A heifer bought with a donation from The Prince of Wales's Charitable Foundation, Templeson Ursula, is cared for with her sister Una by Trust members Derek and Cindy Steen in Scotland.

Custom and folk tradition

The Vaynol belongs to an old tradition of white park cattle kept semi-wild in British and Irish parkland. These herds lived in the parks of estates, looked after rather than farmed. The Vaynol herd stayed in its park for more than a century, from 1872 until 1980. The breed is one of three horned kinds that come from those old parkland herds, and the same stock also gave rise to the polled British White.

Keeping Vaynol cattle

Feeding needs are low, because the animals are small and light. They grow slowly and mature late, and often need extra feed if they are to finish growing within the usual 30 months. Inbreeding is the chief health risk in such a small population, and breeding programmes are arranged to reduce it. The herds are kept apart from one another so that an outbreak of serious disease would not wipe out the whole breed.

Related breeds and crosses

The Vaynol is closely related to the White Park and Chillingham cattle, and looks very like the White Park. These three are the horned breeds that descend from the old white parkland herds of Britain and Ireland. The same park cattle were the basis of a fourth, hornless breed, the British White.

Numbers, conservation and the herd book

Fewer than 150 breeding animals are registered in the United Kingdom, and the breed is listed as critical on the Rare Breeds Survival Trust watchlist. Three herds are officially registered. The main one is at Temple Newsam Home Farm, West Yorkshire, run by Leeds City Council; a second was set up at East Torrington, Lincolnshire, in 2009, and a third in Scotland in 2012. The Trust owns the herdbook and most of the breeding animals.

Questions people ask about Vaynol

Good reading and sources

• Vaynol cattle on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data