File:Hereford_cow,_Souris,_Prince_Edward_Island.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
Key facts
- Conservation status
- DAD-IS (2023): not at risk
- Country of origin
- United Kingdom
- Distribution
- more than 60 countries
- Use
- beef
- Weight
- Male: 1075 kg (2350 lb) Female: 675 kg (1500 lb)
- Height
- Male: 152 cm (60 in) Female: 140 cm (55 in)
- Coat
- red and white
- Horn status
- horned or polled
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- beef cattle
- Subclass of
- cattle
- Country of origin
- England
- Image
- Hereford bull large.jpg
- Height
- 125
Show 3 more facts
- Commons category
- Hereford cattle
- Commons gallery
- Hereford (cattle)
- on focus list of Wikimedia project
- Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~4 min read
Encyclopedic overview
The Hereford is a British breed of beef cattle originally from Herefordshire in the West Midlands of England. It was the result of selective breeding from the mid-eighteenth century by a few families in Herefordshire, beginning some decades before the noted work of Robert Bakewell.
It has spread to many countries; in 2023 the populations reported by 62 countries totalled over seven million head; populations of over 100000 were reported by Uruguay, Brazil and Chile. The breed reached Ireland in 1775, and a few went to Kentucky in the United States in 1817; the modern American Hereford derives from a herd established in 1840 in Albany, New York. It was present in Australia before 1850, and in Argentina from 1858. In the twenty-first century there are breed societies in those countries and in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden in Europe; in Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay in South America; in New Zealand; and in South Africa.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Hereford” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.