The Cattle Breed once called a Freak
Do you know what famous breed of cattle was once considered a freak at the Kansas City Livestock Expo? Stay tuned I’m Susan Allen and I’ll be back with the answer right after the break. At the Kansas City Livestock Exposition in 1873 a new Scottish breed of cattle not only turned heads but received comments…. and they wern't complements. It is comical now to reflect back on the reaction of folks to the bovine breed that has since become integral to today’s style of cattle . When George Grant exhibited two of his four bulls he had just brought from Scotland at the 1873 Livestock Expo in Kansas City, a lot of people commented that they would be better off in the side show because they lacked what every good and perfect beef cow was expected to have...horns. but not in the style of texas cattle rather it was the shorthorn, that exemplified cattle breeds at the time. This didn’t seem to bother Mr. Grant whose initial plan was to build Scottish colonies that would provide an endless supply of beef for Europe. So he bred his black polled bulls with Texas longhorns and found that darned if those black calves didn’t winter better, and weigh more in the Spring. The rest they say is history. Really it is pretty amazing to think that the American Angus Association was formed way back in 1883 and just four years latter twelve hundred head from Scotland had already made it to the US .The growth hasn’t stopped . The American Angus Association registers more cattle per year than any other and is the largest beef breed registry in the world.
