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Breed History
For many people, encountering Highland Cattle is an event. A host of other breeds may also please the modern farmer and consumed for their qualities of meat and milk, growth and temperament. But few others have the sheer charisma to make passers-by stop in their tracks, or tempt them to pose by a fence to be photographed near a bull cow or calf. Highland Cattle have pulling power, with a presence that some how seems much greater than their actual size. After all, they’re fairly small. This is both by the standards of contemporary breeds of domestic cattle and according to writers over the centuries who have pondered why crofters and farmers in the west of Scotland didn’t develop a bigger animal.
The answer is that the Highland breed is ideally suited to conditions at the ocean rim and in the craggy uplands of its native land. It can cope with poor pastures that are lashed by sea driven squalls for weeks on end. It can graze the fringes of wetlands unscathed, pick its way across hilly terrain, ford rivers and calve in snow if needs be. And when the rain has stopped and the gale calmed to the more usual breeze that ruffles the grasses, the animal can look drop-dead gorgeous, in a windswept sort of way.
Tousled hair backlit by summer sun, a faint steam of breath rising from glistening nostrils, an elegant sweep of horns arching out from the broad head: an adult Highlander in its element is a bonny beast indeed. Add a mop-topped calf or two to the group, and few could fail to be attracted.
But this is also the animal that was a mainstay of the economy in the Scottish Highlands and islands for many centuries. At a local level, the house cow could give milk, cheese, butter, hair for weaving and (eventually) hide and leather for a host of uses.
Regionally, the herds gathered in summer for driving south, supported many small markets and trades, including that of the blacksmiths who made shoes for cattle who walked new roads from the 18th century onwards. Nationally, the big ‘trysts’, where Highland Cattle by the bellowing thousands were bought by southern dealers, were among the most colourful annual gatherings in Scotland during the last three centuries.
The scale of the droves that brought Highland Cattle from the islands and the Northlands down, over weeks of journeying, to the markets at the fringe of the Central Belt, not far from Glasgow and Edinburgh, is now hard to comprehend. Like a host of side streams that converged to the main river, as one writer put it a long time ago, the flow of cattle, and their attendant drovers and dogs, moved across the glen and hill to reach such places as Crieff, Falkirk and Stirling. Indeed it needs to be remembered that in the days if Rob Roy McGregor, Highland Cattle were used as money to pay rent or buy goods, and so they had real value.
Those days are gone, but the popularity of the Highland Cattle is on the upturn again, after a period when the breed’s fortunes were on the wane. Farmers in parts of the world as far removed from the Scottish Highlands as northern Canada, Australia and of course, New Zealand now appreciate the qualities and hardiness, calm nature, good maternal care and lean meat for which the breed is renowned.
And in Scotland, there are fine herds – or ‘Folds’ – of Highland Cattle in many places, with an increasing number of the old black type, once the norm for the breed but gradually ousted by redheads in the 19th century. With well supported breed groups in many countries and a solid fan base of knowledgeable enthusiasts, the Highland star is in the ascendent again.
So, if you see a group of Highland Cattle by a roadside field and are tempted to pause and have a closer look, appreciate the moment - you’ll be meeting an icon – an animal as redolent of Scotland’s western fringe and glens as the tang of seaweed and the aroma of the peat-tinged whisky.
Highland Cattle formed an important part of upland and island Scotland’s past. They are also an attractive element of present-day agriculture. And for the breed, in its Highland home or far abroad, the future now seems as bright as those characterful coats.
Highland Cattle are one of the fastest growing breeds in New Zealand, with numerous ‘Folds’ springing up everywhere – almost on a daily basis. Demand for these stunning hairy animals at times outstrips the market’s ability to supply, thus testament to the popularity of the breed.
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