-XBAR- said:
Not exactly heaven, but Europe. According to the book, and other sources, there were 3 main breeds: Aberdeen Angus, galloway, and red polled norfolk. Polled cattle were around before recorded history due to the fact there are cave drawings of such animals.
Many agree that aberdeen angus originated from aboriginal scottish cattle that are still indigenous to that area.
According to the same book, the Colling herd was the "founders" of the shorthorn breed. They practiced the first systematic breeding. Nearly every shorthorn in the states can be traced back to the Colling herd. Next was Thomas Booth, who stressed beef almost to the exclusion of milk. Thomas Bates on the other hand, stressed milk production, and therefore developed the first "strain" of milking shorthorns. He developed the "Dutchess" cow family, which had very low fertility and only created 32 cows in 22 years.
Original colors were dun, yellow, yellow red, deep red, roans and spotted.
It is not know who brought them to Europe or exactly what animal was brought into the country, but it was around the 17 century when a "pied" stock of cattle which resembled the red and white color of "shorthorns".
Between 1750 and 1780 was the first documented shorthorn breeders. Booth, Bates, Clling were among the first in the breed herd book in the 1822.
It is all very fascinating actually. It seems like breeders were advanced way before their time when it came to breeding animals, maintaining breed purity, and working toward a goal. Bakewell, if I recall, was the first to prove that linebreeding could accelerate the positive attributes of a family if heavy culling was used to rid the line of negative traits. He used sheep to prove his theory, and at the time, was thought to be mentally unstable and "sick" due to his breeding of closely related animals.
