Sorry for my long absence on this blog during the last couple of months. It has been because I am very busy with finishing the last illustrations for my upcoming book on "breeding-back" and I am very happy the results so far. The book is currently in its finishing phase and might get published within a few months. It will be worth the wait - I am very confident that you will love it. It will contain some new studies, never before published photos of "breeding-back" cattle and a lot of (I hope) lifelike illustrations. I'm putting my heartblood in it and the process is great fun.
For today, I have some new photos of the Taurus cattle bull Dominator for you. As many of you will know, Dominator is the breeding bull at Kleiberg, part of the Lippeaue population. He is the son of Laniel and a Sayaguesa cow. Laniel was half Sayaguesa and half Laokoon's Brother, who himself was half Sayaguesa and half Heck x Chianina. Therefore, Dominator is mostly Sayaguesa with a bit of Heck and Chianina.
I was sent the photos by Yannick Weinand and they are courtesy of Stephan Krümpelmann, who kindly allowed me to use the photos for the blog. Here they are:
As you can see, Dominator's horns are superb. They curve inwards and if they continue to grow they might develop a perfect primigenius spiral. The angle between snout and horns is rather narrow, but within the range found in European aurochs (see f.e. the skull fragment from Eich bei Worms, Germany).
I also like the cow on the lower photo very much. She has the beautiful name Kleopatra and is a daughter of Linnet and Kalidris, the latter is a daughter of Laokoon and Bionade. Those are very good ancestors and her appearance is great as well. She has a somewhat Lidia-like look, although she has no Lidia in her ancestry. Both her parents are crossbred themselves, which is good because it is way more difficult to get a good individual from two crossbred parents due to inheritance.
Looking at these animals, I am very optimistic for the future development of the Lippeaue population and "breeding-back" in general. Big thanks to Stephan Krümpelmann for allowing me to post the photos. You can check out his Instagram channel Auerochsen Fahrendahl to see photos of his amazing cattle.
Interested readers might also want to check out Stephan's YouTube channel of the same name for interesting videos of his animals.
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ReplyDeleteI am aware that the animals are photographed during the summer, but didn't northern European aurochs have thicker fur?
That's a good question, the answer cannot be ascertained unfortunately. Anton Schneeberger mentions that aurochs had longer fur than domestic cattle, but it is unclear if he referred to the winter fur or both the summer fur and winter fur. But it is well possible that the aurochs' fur was longer than that of cattle all year round in Europe. However, the cattle on the photos do very well with the fur that they have.
DeleteThere’s also the question of what type of cattle he was refering to. The fur of modern cattle may not be similar to theat of 500 years ago.
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