Tough Hill Country Cattle of Galloway Breed Make Great Beef

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 23, 20 February 1948, Page 7

Tough Hill Country Cattle of Galloway Breed Make Great Beef

That it was only on the roughest parts of Scotland, where winters were specially severe, that Galloway cattle were not wintered outside, was a remark by Mr A. B. Duncan, Chairman of the Galloway Cattle Society, in amplification of a reecnt public statement. It was true, said Mr Duncan, that under severe Scottish conditions the young stock did better if kept off the poorest of the hills in their first winter; but such protection would appear neither necessary nor desirable in the much milder conditions obtaining in the North Island of New Zealand. There the Polled Angus cattle were wintered on the hills as yearlings, and Galloways, being a tougher and more rugged breed, should do even better. The Galloway in Scotland had proved itself able to withstand any conditions of rough country, feed and weather. • Its rough-haired, double-coated covering,. ranging from black to an occasional dun, caused the breed to stand out as the only one which was not housed in the bitterest of winters, and as a beef breed providing an excellent carcase it had practically replaced all others in the west of Scotland, and was in strong demand for the hills of Wales and Devon.

Galloway cattle were a distinctive black-coated breed with no markings whatever. They provided a very hardy cow which would breed on land incapable of carrying any other breed of cattle. The steers thrived under those conditions, and a strong point in their favour was that even after a setback they did not lose their shape. They took a little longer to fatten under the hard conditions in which they were run than did other breeds kept on lush feed, but when they reached the fattening stage as three-year-olds their carcase was unsurpassed, as was shown by the prizes won by the breed at Smithfield and the high reputation held with the butchers.