Sunday 7 July 2019

New Auerrind herd, with photos!

The Auerrind project announced the start of a new breeding herd in Frankenstein, Germany (yes, there is a village called Frankenstein) this week. It is composed of the Watussi x Maremmana cow, a young Sayaguesa x Chianina bull, and two Tauros cows from the Netherlands. 

Here are some photos: 
© Auerrind project
Watussi x Maremmana cow © Auerind project
Sayaguesa x Chianina + the half-Watussi cow © Auerrind project
It is very interesting to see these two individuals growing. The Watussi influence in the cow shows rather strongly (which is not a bad thing considering it is an F1), partly possibly also because Podolian cattle have massive zebuine influence anyway. The colour is good and the horns will surely grow very large. The Sayaguesa x Chianina bull seems to have a diluted colour (the phenotype of an F1 is, from the technical view, not relevant for further breeding on qualitative traits). Bulls of this combinations show all possible colour variants between almost white and perfectly aurochs-like, which is peculiar considering that both parental breeds have a uniform phenotype (my possible explanation is that Chianina might not be all homozygous on the diluting loci despite its uniform phenotype, but that is only a suspicion). 

16 comments:

  1. Thanks for the update. It would be most interesting to know the pedigry of the two Tauros cows from the Netherlands. Any suggestions?

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  2. I think regarding horns Barrosa on Maremmana could be tried also.
    By the way, the smaller Auroch below that bigger one on the carving from the Grotta del Romito (linked in the previous article here) displays a bulbous neck (while head risen), wich has some similarity with those of Barrosa-bulls (for example).

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    1. add : I think by simple math if MaremmanaxWatusi would be crossed to Barrosa, then crossed back to MxW, then at most offsprings the desired traits from these breeds should outweight the undesired ones.
      Big horns, straigth faces, reddish basic colour with some dichromatismn, neither overly fragile nor stubby...

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    2. I really don't think Barrosa has anything to add to the programme while it introduces a number of undesired traits.

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    3. I think the most stable undesired trait in this breed would be the short skull.
      However, it has the undesired traits in other places than M and W, wich have their undesired traits also.
      And there would be an overlap in desired ones.
      So the undesired ones from B would be at 25%, undesired ones from both M and W would drop from 50 to 37,5%, while the chance to get some desired ones should rise to 62,5% (curvature, colour, stronger bulls).
      So i think if focusing on horns this breed could make sense here, this could be stabilyzing.

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  3. Are you familiar with this Portuguese project?
    https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2348254418752930

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    1. Those are Maronesa cows not crossbreed cattle and some are there because of bureaucracies not because they are a good example of primitive Maronesa.

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  4. Scottish highland is not so calm after all.
    https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1993070290802655

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    1. With their stocky build their low center of gravity could even send a real Auroch running...

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  5. Wh..where has our hero gone?😔

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  6. Hoping that activity will commence soon. Does anyone know any other blogs in case Daniel is gone much longer

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    1. @tony

      Sadly no. There was the tread at the old carnivora forum, but it was gone after they moved domain or something, and to my limited knowledge a new one never took off.

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  7. Moooo, mooooo, mooooo - where are youuuuuuuuu. Moooooooooo

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  8. @Halken,thanks for the response. I know blogs are time-consuming, so grateful that Daniel does what he does. Not sure about some of the comments

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  9. I'm trying to reach Daniel Foidl for question for my column on Mongabay: https://news.mongabay.com/series/saving-life-on-earth-words-on-the-wild/. W

    hat's the best way to reach Daniel – does anyone know? You can send an email to jlhance@gmail.com.

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