 |
| © Claus Kropp |
"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.
Tuesday, 29 November 2022
Auerrind update
On 7th November, the blog of the Auerrind project posted a little update. It shows some photos of crossbred individuals, f.e. that one:
It shows the two (Sayaguesa x Chianina) x (Sayaguesa x Watussi) bulls, still at young age. I can't wait to see them fully grown because that combination is the in my opinion most promising one of the project so far. If they grow tall and with large horns, they will make prime new breeding bulls. I think the best mating partner for those bulls is the (Sayaguesa x Watussi) x Chianina cow, because she is of a light colour and has a full set of Chianina chromosomes, which at least has the potential to result in a large offspring with large horns and some sexual dichromatism. I am looking forward to see the future development of these individuals.
Chianina and Watussi both have faint dichromatism, don’t they?
ReplyDeleteIt is possible that Chianina has some degree of dichromatism masked beneath the white colour, Watussi sometimes have a very, very faint dichromatism as the bulls tend to be a little bit darker in colour than the cows.
DeleteI have really found your blogs absolutely fascinating and am a huge fan. I had an idea/question I thought I’d lay in front of you and see what your thoughts were on it… There’s a YouTuber who has a channel that I watch called fernando JC Pereira, and it’s about a community on an island off of Portugal that has its own cattle breed that they breed for fighting. (I can’t spell it off the top of my head).
ReplyDeleteNow of course the aggression factor in these cattle would be the hardest aspect for the current breeding back programs already established in Europe, strictly due to the fact that they can be difficult/dangerous to manage. However, I believe that some of the cattle on this island exhibit some pretty accurate aurochs traits, many of which could possibly prove to be useful… These traits being an elongated skull, athletic body shape and structure, some proper coloration in cows and some bulls, and many with an near perfect horn curvature.
Most of the cattle there are solid black, red, or roan, but there are a number of cows that are Aurochs colored as well as bulls that have the white banded nose and dorsal stripe. The cattle are of course small, (as are most fighting cattle), and this strain has been isolated for many years on the island without much genetic variation which couldn’t have helped the size factor much. An interesting fact though Is that when I was actually talking with the channel’s owner about the history of their cattle, he said that they are of a very old strain of Iberian cattle and share much in common with the aurochs. This is where I was wondering if cattle such as these could possibly have a place in some breeding back program somewhere.
There are a number of individuals with perfectly shaped aurochs horns, just a little thinner and smaller which could be selectively bred to be larger or even crossed with watusi to increase the size like in the other breeding back projects.
The most appealing aspect to me though the body structure of these cattle. I have always imagined Aurochs to have been a very slim, athletic, and sleek animal. This primarily influenced by the fact that they evolved as prey animals in a time period when there were far more predators hunting them than we have today. Many of these predators are now extinct, or are no longer prevalent enough in European regions (such as the cave lion, Pleistocene wolves, and hyenas) to have a current effect on modern species. But as is the case in modern day Africa I think that these carnivores had to have some sort of effect in the past of the evolution and phenotype of the aurochs… That primarily being for an athletic and agile body structure in order for these animals to escape. Not quite to the extent of antelope or other Ruminants in Africa, but I Image they had to have had an athletic and agile body shape reflected from predation pressures.
Now other than many being pure black, the biggest criticism for me is the size. These cattle are much much much smaller than any aurochs probably ever would have been. For this maybe the chianinia or sayaguesa genetics could increase the size a little bit. Then perhaps a prolonged period of only selecting the tallest and longest legged animals could prove successful in still yet increasing the animals size.
Overall though, I found that many of the traits I see from the cattle in the videos seem very Aurochs-like and I was excited/curious to see what your opinion on using a strain of cattle like this was. I’d encourage you to maybe watch a few of their videos and see what you thought. The biggest red flag I’m sure you’ll see is the aggression factor, but perhaps a population somewhere could be established that didn’t have to have tons of human interaction, and could be handled in safe facilities such as the ones used in America for Bison. Anyway, I’m sorry for the long winded message. I have just been hooked by your blogs and have become a complete Aurochs nerd.
I know that youtube channel, those are very aurochs-like cattle indeed. I think "breeding-back" can use Lidia only in places with no human contact and when they have a special legal status so that they do not have to be handled, like Chillingham cattle or at the Oostvaardersplassen. Otherwise it would be very difficult to work with Lidia-influenced cattle, especially when they are bred for larger body size and larger horns.
DeleteTrue. I live in the United States and many ranchers raise bison around here which are quite dangerous. The facilities and techniques Used to regularly handle them would probably work fairly well with these cattle. I have noticed as well that most of these cattle are more flighty than anything else and when they are with the herd they are more interested in running away than fighting. Not 100% of the time as there some fiery ones in the videos but I would imagine that if the more timid and docile animals are selected and kept with a lead cow or bull that’s also gentle that they would be more easy to work with. I’ve raised cattle all my life and have found that the best way of managing the crazies is by having a “pet” or really docile or calm cow lead the way and after a little time handling them they do get more accustomed to human interaction. I myself am considering doing my own private experiment with my cattle on a smaller scale to produce an aurochs like animal. I raise corriente cattle and someday would like to import sayaguesa or tauros semen to try on them and see the result. corrientes look similar to those lidia but are exponentially more docile as they are used in rodeos and need to be less aggressive around humans.
DeleteCorriente are wonderful, they have a lot of potential for breeding aurochs-like cattle. I would use TaurUs cattle semen instead of TaurOs cattle semen, as Taurus are way better than Tauros cattle. The latter don't have anything to add to a Corriente population in terms of aurochs-likeness.
DeleteThe only issue I have with the Corrientes is their size. I am fairly certain that many of them can carry the genes for the correct sexual dichromatism but I’m still unsure yet on how to get that to kick in. The Corrientes are extremely hardy, practically parasite resistent, incredibly feed efficient, and their calving ease is unparalleled. Even first calf heifers seem to be able to pop out calves even from beef bulls like Limousin and charolais with no problems at all. (I suppose that’s from all the years of living as semi feral cattle where nature selected for the hardiest).
DeleteI guess from the breeding back standpoint though I am just unsure what technique to start with for selecting for the proper coloring based on sex… There are plenty of correctly colored cows out there, and I have seen a fair number of correctly colored bulls, but I am unsure if I were to breed those together if they will result in the right colors on the offspring or if it will just be random…I am also curious to know how hard it would be to breed the correct color in to a group of solid black cows as that’s mainly what I have to work with at the moment. If I can find the right colored bull and breed to him would that be a start? How many crosses would it take to get the solid black gene bred out? I do have a couple correctly aurochs colored cows I can focus on but some of the solid blacks have better horn shapes and body shapes.
Ideally I would like to use the longhorn and corriente cattle available around me first to get as close as I possibly can with the genetics available before I buy any semen to try on them, mainly because I’m sure there is the correct corriente genetics out there to accomplish a perfectly colored, horned, and shaped animal. Just on a smaller scale ofcourse and then that’s where I could use semen from other bulls to try and increase the size. I will trying to buy more heifers in the spring and will remain on the search for a correctly colored bull to try on them.