"Breeding-back" aims to restore or immitate extinct animals by selective breeding. This blog provides general information, the facts behind myths and news from various projects.
Saturday 9 November 2013
Videos of Tauros cattle
At the moment I do not have the time to write long posts with much literature reference, therefore another "short post" today. There are several videos of Tauros cattle out there, but since the official Tauros Program webpage doesn't present media of them you have to know where to look. In order to make you the quest easier, I'll post all videos of Tauros cattle, crosses as much as parental generation individuals (= pure cattle), down below.
Video by European Wildlife. It's the oldest Maremmana x Pajuna cross bull named Manolo Uno. I was especially curious on the (Maremmana x Highland) x Sayaguesa offspring. Those among them which are phenotypically wild type coloured are all very dark, so reduced sexual dimorphism, which is probably caused by Sayaguesa. However, this can be fixed in the next generation. I am curious on how the horns of these animals will grow. The screenshots below, taken from the videos by Theo van der Heijden on Youtube, show the Sayaguesa bull and the oldest F2 bull. Since the video was made in February 2013, I am looking forward to see how it looks today.
Am I wrong to think all those highland cattle have no business out there as part of this project? I think it is going to set the project back years trying to breed out all the bad highland traits the initial crosses will have. And if you insist on getting some of the "good" highland traits, why not just use some of the better heck cattle lineages in your initial crosses instead of highland?
If they use the right F2 and cull the bad ones, there is the chance of limiting the unwanted Highland traits. But you are right, this breed introduces many undesired features and I already had the same thought you had; using good Hecks, or Ecolanders (which will be covered here in a future post), probably would have been more advantageous for the project than pure Highlands. But the reason why they wouldn't include Heck cattle or Heck-influenced cattle is more of an ideological than a practical reason.
i think the highland cattle bring many good traits, they bring the well developed winter fur/ summer fur, they bring well developed hair between the horns in the winter, they bring big (often thick horns) who are often also rightly shaped (not always but this can be selected on), they are the most hardened cattle of all and can survive in the more harsh winters than the other breeds as well as on low quality food, they bring good indepent reproduction (as most others do as well), they mature incredibly slow which is extremely desired and last but not least are genetically very close to the aurochs way closer than multiple other breeds and therefor bring a lot of good genetics into the pool that other breeds might no posses. they are for example closer to the aurochs genetically than heck cattle are, who is still suprisingly close. besides heck cattle brings a lot of bad traits many of those traits like small size, short legs and shoulders and wrong skulls are already in highland but the big udders and spotted coats aren't. besides the problems in highland cattle are fastly exacurated: their slow size and low shoulder as well as to thick coat are among the easiest to breed out, many dutch highlanders already lost their thick coat because of natural selection and now have thin summer coats as thin as the iberian cattle. they are an amazing aurochs like breed that especially in the begining will bring a lot of possibility for fast breeding since the other breeds are rare while highland cattle isn't with highland cattle they can achieve many aurochs like breeds very fastly with good unique charachteristics. the bad ones can be selected out in 1 or 2 generations and than you will have an enormous tauros like cattle population thta is genetically differce and close related to the aurochs which can still be improved, plus the cattle can be assured to survive in all terains and climates
Regarding Highland cattle I agree completely, it's one of the least interesting breeds regarding any breeding back project. About Heck cattle they are definitely more interesting than Highland, not my first option but some of them quite interesting. Best regards
Heck cattle is such a heterogenous breed that its value for breeding back varies greatly as well. Most Hecks are mediocre or ok, about as aurochs-like as an average Iberian breed like Alistana-Sanabresa or Mirandesa in sum, other herds are either horrible and totally not useful (I wrote a post on them too), and some herds, like the one in Wörth or good Taurus cattle, are indeed very aurochs-like, probably comparable to very aurochs-like Iberian breeds like Maronesa, Sayaguesa or Lidia. The semi-feral Hecks in the Netherlands (a post on them will come soon) and especially those at Oostvaardersplassen also have some valuable individuals because of the natural selection they have undergone.
i think the highland cattle bring many good traits, they bring the well developed winter fur/ summer fur, they bring well developed hair between the horns in the winter, they bring big (often thick horns) who are often also rightly shaped (not always but this can be selected on), they are the most hardened cattle of all and can survive in the more harsh winters than the other breeds as well as on low quality food, they bring good indepent reproduction (as most others do as well), they mature incredibly slow which is extremely desired and last but not least are genetically very close to the aurochs way closer than multiple other breeds and therefor bring a lot of good genetics into the pool that other breeds might no posses. they are for example closer to the aurochs genetically than heck cattle are, who is still suprisingly close. besides heck cattle brings a lot of bad traits many of those traits like small size, short legs and shoulders and wrong skulls are already in highland but the big udders and spotted coats aren't. besides the problems in highland cattle are fastly exacurated: their slow size and low shoulder as well as to thick coat are among the easiest to breed out, many dutch highlanders already lost their thick coat because of natural selection and now have thin summer coats as thin as the iberian cattle. they are an amazing aurochs like breed that especially in the begining will bring a lot of possibility for fast breeding since the other breeds are rare while highland cattle isn't with highland cattle they can achieve many aurochs like breeds very fastly with good unique charachteristics. the bad ones can be selected out in 1 or 2 generations and than you will have an enormous tauros like cattle population thta is genetically differce and close related to the aurochs which can still be improved, plus the cattle can be assured to survive in all terains and climates
Am I wrong to think all those highland cattle have no business out there as part of this project? I think it is going to set the project back years trying to breed out all the bad highland traits the initial crosses will have. And if you insist on getting some of the "good" highland traits, why not just use some of the better heck cattle lineages in your initial crosses instead of highland?
ReplyDeleteIf they use the right F2 and cull the bad ones, there is the chance of limiting the unwanted Highland traits. But you are right, this breed introduces many undesired features and I already had the same thought you had; using good Hecks, or Ecolanders (which will be covered here in a future post), probably would have been more advantageous for the project than pure Highlands. But the reason why they wouldn't include Heck cattle or Heck-influenced cattle is more of an ideological than a practical reason.
Deletei think the highland cattle bring many good traits, they bring the well developed winter fur/ summer fur, they bring well developed hair between the horns in the winter, they bring big (often thick horns) who are often also rightly shaped (not always but this can be selected on), they are the most hardened cattle of all and can survive in the more harsh winters than the other breeds as well as on low quality food, they bring good indepent reproduction (as most others do as well), they mature incredibly slow which is extremely desired and last but not least are genetically very close to the aurochs way closer than multiple other breeds and therefor bring a lot of good genetics into the pool that other breeds might no posses. they are for example closer to the aurochs genetically than heck cattle are, who is still suprisingly close. besides heck cattle brings a lot of bad traits many of those traits like small size, short legs and shoulders and wrong skulls are already in highland but the big udders and spotted coats aren't. besides the problems in highland cattle are fastly exacurated: their slow size and low shoulder as well as to thick coat are among the easiest to breed out, many dutch highlanders already lost their thick coat because of natural selection and now have thin summer coats as thin as the iberian cattle. they are an amazing aurochs like breed that especially in the begining will bring a lot of possibility for fast breeding since the other breeds are rare while highland cattle isn't with highland cattle they can achieve many aurochs like breeds very fastly with good unique charachteristics. the bad ones can be selected out in 1 or 2 generations and than you will have an enormous tauros like cattle population thta is genetically differce and close related to the aurochs which can still be improved, plus the cattle can be assured to survive in all terains and climates
DeleteRegarding Highland cattle I agree completely, it's one of the least interesting breeds regarding any breeding back project. About Heck cattle they are definitely more interesting than Highland, not my first option but some of them quite interesting.
ReplyDeleteBest regards
Heck cattle is such a heterogenous breed that its value for breeding back varies greatly as well. Most Hecks are mediocre or ok, about as aurochs-like as an average Iberian breed like Alistana-Sanabresa or Mirandesa in sum, other herds are either horrible and totally not useful (I wrote a post on them too), and some herds, like the one in Wörth or good Taurus cattle, are indeed very aurochs-like, probably comparable to very aurochs-like Iberian breeds like Maronesa, Sayaguesa or Lidia. The semi-feral Hecks in the Netherlands (a post on them will come soon) and especially those at Oostvaardersplassen also have some valuable individuals because of the natural selection they have undergone.
Deletei think the highland cattle bring many good traits, they bring the well developed winter fur/ summer fur, they bring well developed hair between the horns in the winter, they bring big (often thick horns) who are often also rightly shaped (not always but this can be selected on), they are the most hardened cattle of all and can survive in the more harsh winters than the other breeds as well as on low quality food, they bring good indepent reproduction (as most others do as well), they mature incredibly slow which is extremely desired and last but not least are genetically very close to the aurochs way closer than multiple other breeds and therefor bring a lot of good genetics into the pool that other breeds might no posses. they are for example closer to the aurochs genetically than heck cattle are, who is still suprisingly close. besides heck cattle brings a lot of bad traits many of those traits like small size, short legs and shoulders and wrong skulls are already in highland but the big udders and spotted coats aren't. besides the problems in highland cattle are fastly exacurated: their slow size and low shoulder as well as to thick coat are among the easiest to breed out, many dutch highlanders already lost their thick coat because of natural selection and now have thin summer coats as thin as the iberian cattle. they are an amazing aurochs like breed that especially in the begining will bring a lot of possibility for fast breeding since the other breeds are rare while highland cattle isn't with highland cattle they can achieve many aurochs like breeds very fastly with good unique charachteristics. the bad ones can be selected out in 1 or 2 generations and than you will have an enormous tauros like cattle population thta is genetically differce and close related to the aurochs which can still be improved, plus the cattle can be assured to survive in all terains and climates
ReplyDelete