Black Hereford

Black Hereford is an informal term used in the British Isles for a hybrid type of beef cattle produced by crossing a Hereford beef bull with Holstein-Friesian dairy cows. Black Herefords are not usually maintained from generation to generation, but are constantly produced as a byproduct of dairy farming. They are one of the commonest types of beef cattle in the British Isles, often outnumbering pure beef breeds.

Appearance

The Black Hereford has a white face like the Hereford, but the red body colour of the Hereford is replaced by black from the Holstein-Friesian – white face and black coat colour are both genetically dominant in cattle. The pied pattern of the Holstein-Friesian does not appear in the offspring.

Origin

In dairy herds (which in the British Isles are almost all Holstein-Friesians), the best adult milking cows will normally be got in calf to a dairy bull, usually by artificial insemination (AI). The female pure-bred dairy calves from these will go on to become replacement dairy cows. Half of the pure-bred calves will of course be male – these are mostly not needed for breeding, and are unsuitable for beef; they may be reared for veal or more commonly are killed at a few days old. Pure-bred dairy calves are not needed from the rest of the herd, and a beef bull is run with the remaining females to produce cross-bred calves suitable for beef – these females will be the poorer-quality cows, the heifers (first-time females), and any of the other cows which have not got in calf successfully to the AI dairy bull. The beef bull in this system may be of almost any beef breed, but the Hereford is one of the most widely used – one reason for its popularity is that the white face from the Hereford makes it very easy to distinguish the cross-bred calves from the pure-bred dairy calves at birth.

Uses

Black Herefords are intermediate in type between their beef sire and dairy dam, making them hardy and healthy, and suitable for rearing on grass. When well-grown, all the males and most of the females will be killed for beef. Females not needed for beef may be kept for breeding further beef animals – they are put to a beef bull (often a Limousin or Charolais) and allowed to rear their own calves on grass as "single sucklers".

imilar types

The Black Hereford is similar in pattern and colour to another hybrid type called Black Baldy in Australia and North America. The pattern will be produced whenever a white-faced cattle breed is crossed with a black solid-coloured or pied one.