My neighbor i have my permaculture project with is a farmer, he was landracing long before i was, but with cows. The race they have here is Charolais, big white meat cows. They’ve bred them more and more big. The calves have become so enormous they often need a veterinarian to be born through caesaraen. The mothercows have lost their motherinstinct and farmers had to run after calves, feed them and-so-on.
They need a lot of land as well and they’re pretty weak.
So my farmer friend decided it was time to cross breed them. Years ago he brought in a Limousin bull which created brownish offspring. After that he brought in a Gascon taureau, which made some black calves appear and others grey.
Now it’s some kind of mix. But he’s hoping to retire, so if somebody wants them in their collection, say so.
I think the most beneficial action that could have been done to improve the situaltion is to revisit a permaculture design method called Analysis of Element related to these poor animals.
