The Taurus cow Lerida

Lerida, a Heck x Sayaguesa, in young years © Matthias Scharf

Today I want to cover one of the very good Taurus cattle individuals from the Lippeaue named Lerida. This cow is the result of the cross of the Heck bull Lancelot and the Sayaguesa cow Dona-Urraca, hence Heck x Sayaguesa. With this cross, a quite good resemblance to the European aurochs was achieved in the first generation of Taurus cattle breeding already. 

Her withers height was not measured yet, but she might be of the same size as the average for Taurus cows, that is 150-155 cm at the withers. Her colour fits a European aurochs cow perfectly, and also her horns are of an aurochs-like curvature. They would need to be a little bit bigger to fit European aurochs cows. The proportions and body shape are OK. The trunk needs to be slightly shorter (the trunk length of aurochs cows was slightly less than 100% of the withers height, see the Sassenberg aurochs cow). Also, the hump would need to be bigger and the udder smaller. If those "flaws" would be fixed, Lerida would be a perfect or near-perfect optic/morphologic copy of a European aurochs cow. This is why she has always been one of my favourite Taurus cows. Her behaviour is unproblematic. 

She left a number of descendants in the herd. One of them was Lippe, a F2 Heck x Sayaguesa, which happened to be rather small horned,  or 84 037, which inherited the hanging spine of Sayaguesa (the father was Lombriz, a Sayaguesa x (Heck x Chianina) bull). Another daughter of Lerida was the very good cow Lisette, which was half Heck x Lidia. 

Here are two photos more: 

Lerida a little bit older © Matthias Scharf

Photographed in the Lippeaue 2013, all rights reserved. 

A Sayaguesa x Chianina with excellent body shape

Recently another photo of one of the Sayaguesa x Chianina cows was published on Facebook by Claus Kropp: 

© Claus Kropp

The body shape of the cow looks excellent. The waist is slender and the hump is large. As it is not in profile view, I cannot judge if the trunk should be shorter (it was quite short in aurochs cows), but the legs are long nevertheless. Something intermediate between this and a good Lidia cow would be a perfect aurochs cow-lookalike in terms of body shape. Horn shape and size is not there yet, and the coat shows the dilution factor of Chianina, but this cow is a very good basis for further breeding. 

© Claus Kropp

This guy will cover her, or maybe has already covered her. It is Alvarez the Sayaguesa x Watussi bull. I am really looking forward to this offspring. It will be 50% Sayaguesa, 25% Chianina and 25% Watussi. It might not have a perfect primigenius spiral yet but otherwise has the chance to become very good.