What is a rare breed?

 

Here we are talking specifically of rare breeds of farm animals: cattle, sheep, pigs, horses, goats and poultry. As farming became much more intensive after the second world war a lot of the old, native breeds of farm animals were either lost completely or became perilously close to it. An organization called the Rare Breeds Survival Trust (RBST) was set up in early 1970s to attempt to stop these losses and it has been highly successful- it has not lost a breed taken under its wings and some have strengthened to the extent they do not need its care. The RBST uses a number of factors about a breed to define its vulnerability: numbers of breeding animals, diversity of location- foot and mouth showed how vulnerable having the majority of a breed population in one area made the breed- etc. For much more information on this please go to www.rbst.org.uk.  An indication of how low the numbers can go is that the breeds on the critical list, such as the Shetland Cow and the Eriskay Pony are more rare than the Giant Panda.

 

Why should we worry about loosing these animals? A number of reasons. They are part of our heritage- people have worked long and hard to ensure that these animals are well adapted to their environment and meet the needs of their keepers. Having a variety of breeds provides people with a variety of options when faced with choosing a breed best suited to the job they want to do. For instance, grazing animals is a tool used to conserve particular environments- see www.grazinganimalsproject.org for further information. The breeds of animals used generally in farming are not so suited to this type of work as they tend to be bigger and far less hardy and so do not do well on this type of grazing and may cause damage to the flora, particularly when the ground is wet.. An interesting example of this type of activity is the grazing of Hebridean sheep on the Culloden battlefield. They were chosen for the job as they are like the sheep that would have grazed there at the date of the battle. As mainstream farming comes to terms with the business changes imposed by the reform of CAP then native , hardy breeds which can perform with minimal inputs become more attractive commercially. Growth rates for Shetland cross claves for instance have been remarkable, so much so that the properties of the milk produced by Shetland cows was investigated by the Scottish Agricultural college. It was found to be much higher in Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) than milk produce by the Holstein/Friesian cows. CLA is known to be an "anti-cancer" agent and can help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

 

 Because these native breeds tend to be smaller, hardier and more people orientated, in my experience anyway, they are easier for newcomers to farming to take on. They can also be kept well on smaller areas of land. Another bonus is that the people who keep them tend to be enthusiastic about the breed and are very glad when others turn up to help keep the breed going. They also tend to be terrific characters- with one or two notable exceptions everyone I know who keeps Shetland Cattle can talk the hind leg off several of them!