Tux Cattle

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The Tux Cattle is a cattle breed that is particularily common in the alpine region. It is one of the old endangered cattle breeds. Tux is a village in the Tux Valley in Tyrol in Austria.

[edit] Characteristics

The Tux Cattle has a black or red fur with white spots on the pelvis, the tail root, the ventral abdomen and on the udder. The Head is short and broad with strong horns. The trunk is compact, broad and musculous. The legs are relatively short. Bulls: height 140 cm, weight 800 - 900 kg. Cows: height 120 - 130 cm, weight 550 - 600 kg. The tux cattle is frugal and was once kept on alpine mountain pastures.

Similarly to the Herens cattle, Tux cattle has a high aggression potential that results in long ranking fights between the cows. In former times they selected on fighting abilities that resulted in an decreasing milk performance. Tux cows produce 1,500 kg milk per year averagely. Herens cows that are similarly frugal deliver more than twice the amount. However, the milk fat content of the Tux cows is about 8 %, that of the Herens cows about 3.7 %.

[edit] Breeding history

The Tux cattle is said to stem from the Herens cattle. Originally the breed was common in Tyrol and was involved in the breeding of diverse other alpine breeds. Today it was displaced by more productive cattle breeds und only kept in the Ziller Valley. The Tux cattle took part on the development of some Russian cattle breeds, too.

Today there exist only between 110 and 300 animals.