Galloway Cattle
Introduction to the breed
The Galloway is one of the oldest and purest of UK native cattle breeds originating from the Galloway region in South West Scotland. They are naturally polled hill cattle (no horns) eminently suited for converting rough grazing in to lean meat. The common colour is black, however there are some that are dun, red, white and black and white (belted Galloway – black with a white belt round their middle).
The list below highlights the main traits of this breed:
Unique double coat of hair which has a long silky top coat to repel the rain and cold weather conditions and a mossy undercoat which maximises heat retention and acts like an insulator. The animal also has very hairy ears and a heavily fringed face.
Medium sized cow, compact and well fleshed bred for generations to live off the poorest of land.
Very good milkers and produce good strong calves.
Easy Calving cow with good mothering instinct.
Long living breed producing calves well in to their teens giving an economic advantage over most breeds used in UK cattle production.
Unselective grazer – studies by Mols Laboratory in Denmark noted that the Galloway consumed more species of plants than any other breed of cow.
The Galloway is well known for its good tasting meat which is lean and succulent. In the UK, Galloway beef generally commands a price premium of 10-15% above other beef breeds due to its superior quality.
Mature Cows are between 525-650kg.
Mature Bulls are between 775-950kg.
Fattening steers are slightly slower growing than continental cattle with a DLWG of 1kg off grass killing out at an average of 60-62% of their original weight.
Suitability of the breed for Eastern Europe
The Galloway is renowned internationally for its hardiness, superior foraging ability and high quality beef. Its thick coat is idea to cope with the freezing conditions experienced in the winter. The coat is about 1 inch thicker than other cattle breeds and experiments have proven that this makes the Galloway 20% more efficient in its feed conversion rate compared to other breeds of cattle in the UK.
The supreme hardiness of the Galloway was one of the main factors for the demand in exports before the export ban was imposed on the UK following BSE.
In Germany the Galloway is very popular as they have identified the animal’s ability to stay outside all winter in very cold, wet conditions.
The Germans also identified the fact that the Galloway is an unselective grazer ideal for grazing rough pastures where poor, old vegetation needs to be ripped out and grazed down to allow the growth of young plants with a better nutritional value.
Germany and Holland imported over 3500 animals in 1980s as they recognised the ecological advantage of the breed to improve natural herbage meeting government policy criteria and the easy management of the cow meant that the farmer could manage the cattle on a part time basis. In certain areas of Germany the Galloways have proven far superior to native breeds. The extensive grazing nature of the cow means that it can be grazed over a large range of conditions (upland heaths, lowland swamps, rough grassland and hills) and the Germans realised that this gave the breed an important advantage over other breeds.
The natural ability of the Galloway to be self sufficient, hardy and unselective in its grazing ability coupled with the production of high quality beef make the Galloway ideally suited to Eastern Europe especially Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
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