he Black Hereford is a hybrid type of beef cattle produced in the British Isles by crossing Hereford beef bulls with Holstein-Friesian dairy cows. Black Herefords are not usually maintained from generation to generation, but are constantly produced as a byproduct of dairy farming as a terminal cross. They are one of the most common types of beef cattle in the British Isles, outnumbering many pure beef breeds.
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Origin
Cattle only produce milk after calving, and so every dairy cow must produce a calf every year. In dairy herds (which in the British Isles are almost all Holstein-Friesians), the best milking cows will normally be bred to a dairy bull, usually by artificial insemination (AI). The female purebred dairy calves from these matings will go on to become replacement dairy cows. Half of the purebred calves will, of course, be male – these are mostly not needed for breeding, and are generally unsuitable for beef; they may be reared for veal or are killed and disposed of at a few days old, depending on economics. Purebred dairy calves are not needed from the rest of the herd, and a beef bull is run with the remaining females to produce crossbred calves suitable for beef – these females will be the poorer-quality cows, the heifers (first-time calvers), and any of the other cows which have not settled (become pregnant) successfully by a bull. The beef bull in this system may be of almost any beef breed, but the Hereford is one of the most widely used – one reason for its popularity is that the white face from the Hereford makes it very easy to avoid confusion between the crossbred and purebred calves at birth.
