Let's appreciate Heck cattle for a moment

Heck cattle usually receives a lot of negative PR, so I felt motivated to write a blog post on what is positive about this breed in “breeding-back”. So let’s take the “the glass is half-full” approach today and appreciate what is useful about this breed in the endeavour of ecologically replacing the aurochs.

 

-) The very dense, insulating and efficient winter coat

 

Heck cattle are very well-suited for the climate of Central and Northern Europe and grow a very dense, shaggy and insulating winter coat. This is not exclusive to Heck cattle, but this trait makes them very useful for an ecologic replacement of the extinct aurochs.

 

-) Some herds have a virtually perfectly aurochs-like colour

 

Herds such as the Hellabrunn herd in Munich, or the Neanderthal lineage, is virtually or completely devoid of mutated colour alleles and also has a well-marked colour dimorphism (with exceptions). Among aurochs-like breeds in general, only Maronesa and the old lineage of Corsicana have a colour that is always identical to that of the aurochs. Pajuna and a number of other breeds might be as good as the good Heck herds in this respect.

 

-) Descending from robust and hardy breeds, they are well-suited for their ecological job

 

This is not exclusive to Heck cattle, obviously, but they are robust and hardy and thrive well in Central and Northern Europe, and they probably would do so in Southern Europe as well. This makes it one of many breeds that are useful for restoring the ecological function of Bos primigenius/taurus in the wild.

 

-) Some lineages have very large horns of a useful curvature

 

Most aurochs-like breeds lack an aurochs-like horn volume. This is also true of many Heck cattle, but there is a growing number of Heck cattle that have a truly impressive horn volume. There is the Neanderthal lineage, the Bayerischer Wald lineage and of course those of the Steinberg/Wörth lineage. There are also single individuals in other herds that have a monstrous horn volume. The fact that there are Heck cattle with very large and thick horns is great for “breeding-back”, because you get the same benefit as from crossing-in Watussi without the indicine influence on morphology and winter coat.

Also, the curvature of the horns of those Heck cattle lineages is usually more useful than in Watussi or Texas Longhorn (the latter would have to be imported, which would be even more effortful).

 

-) Heck cattle are easily available

 

While most less-derived breeds are endangered, the most aurochs-like lineages even highly endangered, Heck cattle are comparably numerous and widespread among European countries.

 

-) Their behaviour is mostly unproblematic

 

Despite what is claimed in tabloids based on a single incident, Heck cattle are mostly easy to handle. They are not overly nervous or aggressive even when being confined, with a few exceptions, and are nowhere nearly as problematic in behaviour as Spanish fighting cattle for example. Again, this is not exclusive to Heck cattle but it is good that they are mostly easy to handle.

 

So all in all I think that Heck cattle is a useful breed for “breeding-back”, single individuals or herds even very useful. But of course the breed also has some deficiencies, like any breed, that would need to be fixed if the breed aims to be a perfect morphological copy of the aurochs. Many breeders like the specific Heck cattle phenotype and I can understand that; I think that crossing in some good Maronesa would complement Heck cattle very well in terms of horn shape without altering their typical morphology/appearance too much. As for much larger, more elegant animals, we have Taurus cattle due to the crossing with Chianina and Sayaguesa. What is also positive is that Heck and Taurus are not closed gene pools but there is continuous gene flow from Taurus into Heck, so that the breed is slowly but steadily getting larger and more aurochs-like.