The Heritage Cattle Directory (heritage-cattle.com) was formed to advance awareness of endangered heritage breeds or heirloom bloodlines of cattle and to provide increased support of rare populations of cattle that are not well known, or well supported elsewhere.

1. To increase & preserve genetic diversity among rare heritage lines of cattle.
2. To identify and raise awareness about little known rare breeds or populations of cattle.
3. To locate little-known herds of unique cattle, and list breeders here in public directories.
4. To help increase profits from raising endangered lines of cattle.

1. Heritage Cattle by definition are animals from which all predecessors trace back to the breed's original herd book(s) with no known outside breed influence in its genetics, pedigree or history.
   
   
2. Rare Cattle. We include a few unusual populations or heirloom bloodlines of cattle on this website that are not heritage breeds, but are interesting, little-known or unusual cattle with probable genetic value. Not included are trademarked composite "breeds" with unique proprietary names; the breeds they are developed from are popular; not unusual.
   
   
3. For those interested in preservation breeding: Read more about breed purity here, and know what questions to ask breeders, sellers or registries.
   
   
4. If a group of breeders became interested in forming a herdbook or registry for their unique population of cattle, the Heritage Cattle Directory recommends the Homestead Cattle Association.
   
   
5. The Heritage Cattle Directory is not a herd book or registry or membership association. There are no fees to access the directories kept here. This is simply a directory of resources for breeders of rare or unique populations of cattle. Most cattle included on this site are heritage breeds or heirloom bloodlines, but we also include a few other little-known herds of cattle that have sustainable rare genetics, that are likely to add efficiency to regenerative farming, and are bred to provide value to a homestead.

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Heritage-Cattle.com's main purpose and focus is on subsets of heritage cattle, with unique traits, that some breeders look for, but have no single source where to look, because there is no directory for them anywhere else. Directories here are for subsets of any rare heritage cattle, such as spotted, mis-marked, over-marked, under-marked, riggit, off colored, old left-behind heritage bloodlines, heritage cattle in miniature size, etc. As it happens, in creating these directories, it turns out many of these subsets include cattle without equal footing in their mainstream or large registries.

Rare breeds & heritage bloodlines within breeds, face the bottleneck effect and the loss of diversity due to unequal use of founders and a significant population decline. Further population size reduction can lead to serious problems. To avoid that in the future, the goal is to identify the remaining pure bloodlines, and preserve those declining, disappearing populations of cattle.

The directories here for heritage Hereford and Angus, are for full size cattle. There are already directories for miniature Herefords, and fullblood Lowlines are found fairly easily among their registry directories; these comprise the largest reservoir of heritage genetics for Herefords and Angus. Since the miniatures and small frame versions are more numerous and already have breeder directories, I just include links to those. Not only would it be a wild lot of work to gather and add all of them on this site; I wouldn't want to risk offending those registries by copying and pasting their paid members lists and work.

The directories here for Jersey and Guernsey are for any size cattle. Their heritage lines are not supported anywhere that I could find, unless maybe a few by the Livestock Conservancy.

The Wagyu breed(s) are not only black or red. They have an old line of white cattle. They are rejected in their main North American registry, but they are purportedly no less pure.

There are Dexters that are frowned on for being brindle, or may be outright rejected for excessive white markings or spots in some of their registries. Not from breed contamination, but from old crop out genetics selected away from over the decades.

Red Irish Kerries are not eligible for registration, nor are brindles in America. Yet the Kerry breed carries recessive red, and apparently wild red and the Abr agouti gene. Breeders are required to test them, and are not allowed by American registries to breed red carriers to each other. But red and brindle fullblood Kerry's are found in Great Britain, as I understand.

There are pure (rare) full size Highlands that have spots. There are fullblood full size Galloway that are riggit marked, but became rejected as of 2021, by their American registry. But they are being preserved and protected by a new awareness in Great Britain. Those breeders are pleased that I am identifying them over here, in spite of the American mainstream registry's new stance.

There are a handful of fullblood Galloways and fullblood Highlands that exist in miniature size. Due to the current fad of selling expensive tiny hairy calves, they are in danger of being crossbred into oblivion. It is no wonder; with all the faddish trademarked names and miniature marketing strategies, they are valued for maybe 1/8 of what their crossbred calves are currently being advertised for.

I can find no directory for Square Meater breeders in North America. Square Meaters are not identified and listed anywhere as a subset of the Murray Grey, for those looking for Square Meaters, especially producers on small acreage, and they have a hard time finding them, IF they ever even heard of them. Breeders are proud of Square Meaters in Australia.

Guinea criollo (Pineywoods and Florida Cracker) cattle, are rare. They are not identified or listed separately anywhere that I know of. I chatted with Doc S.Sponenberg and he suspects from what he has seen, the guinea dwarf gene is a harmless simple recessive. I don't know of any other bovine dwarfism variant in North America that can hold that claim, a completely harmless gene causing smaller cattle (UPDATE: yes, ran across another example; miniature club calves). It has yet to be genetically studied. I would love to see a breeder select for them. And how about miniature Texas Longhorns? Do they carry a guinea gene, or are they just lines selected for shorter frame scores? And, how do interested breeders find guinea cattle in particlar? Because of this, I include all I find in the the Spanish directory.

Conclusion: My passion is for any and all rare, fullblood or heritage lines and breeds of cattle, and most specifically for those that lack awareness and promotion elsewhere. My mission is to maintain directories of rare cattle that do not have directories anywhere else.

Submission: When requested, most breeders of any rare or heritage cattle are accepted for inclusion on this website. The cattle I would not include, would be cattle that are not really pure and not really rare. To submit your operation, email all your contact information to homestead.cattle.assn@gmail.com. ~ Donna Grace

Heritage-Cattle Directory Maricopa County, Arizona a cooperate of Homestead Cattle Association, owned by Bucking V Outfit, LLC. enterprises, est. 1990

©published online 2020