Lincoln Red Cattle: From Dutch Draft Stock to Polled Beef Breed

What is a Lincoln Red?

The Lincoln Red is a British beef breed named for the county of Lincolnshire in the eastern Midlands of England. Its coat is a very dark red, and according to the Wikipedia article on the breed the animals are usually polled, meaning hornless, although they were formerly horned. Males average about 990 kilograms and females about 700 kilograms, standing roughly 145 and 135 centimeters at the shoulder. The breed is noted for docility and an ability to thrive in all conditions, and today it is reared for beef.

Dutch draft cattle and the road to a Lincolnshire breed

The story starts in the seventeenth century, when large, coarse, powerful draft cattle were brought from Holland to Lincolnshire. They were usually red or red and white. In 1631 the writer Gervase Markham described Lincolnshire cattle as pied, with more white than other colors and small crooked horns, and in 1712 John Mortimer called them the Dutch breed.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, local breeders bought medium-sized red Shorthorns, also known as Durham cattle, from Durham and Yorkshire and crossed them with the big local stock. Thomas Turnell of Wragby had a herd of cherry-red, fast-growing cattle by the end of the eighteenth century, known as the Turnell Reds. From 1822 the cattle were registered in Coates's Shorthorn herd book.

The Lincoln Red Shorthorn Association

The breed was first called the Lincolnshire Red Shorthorn and was dual purpose, raised for both milk and beef. The Lincoln Red Shorthorn Association was formed in 1895 and published its own herd book within a year. By the 1920s it was the second most numerous registered breed in Britain, according to the same Wikipedia account.

That status is worth keeping in mind when reading about the breed's later struggles. A cattle type that once stood behind only one other registered breed in the country has since fallen onto conservation watch lists.

How the Lincoln Red became polled

Hornless cattle are safer to handle and cheaper to haul, so breeders have long prized the polled trait. From the start of the Second World War until about 1956, the breeder Eric Pentecost introduced the polled gene into the Lincoln Red. He first used a Red Poll bull and then Aberdeen Angus bulls, both black and red.

Polled stock was first shown in 1956 and won several prizes. That same year a polled Lincoln bull was licensed by the Ministry of Agriculture. The word shorthorn was dropped from the breed's name in 1960, reflecting its move away from the old dual-purpose Shorthorn type.

Lincoln Reds overseas

The breed is present in several countries. The same Wikipedia article reports that Lincoln Red cattle were imported into Australia more than a century ago, and that the Lincoln Red Cattle Society of Australia was formed in 1971, starting with one registered herd. The source gives no export volumes or population counts, so the scale of the overseas herds cannot be stated here.

Is the Lincoln Red a rare breed?

Yes, by several measures. Wikipedia reports that the Food and Agriculture Organization listed the original population as endangered-maintained in 2007, and that the DAD-IS database listed it as at risk or critical in 2022. The Rare Breeds Survival Trust also listed it as at risk in 2022 to 2023. Cross-bred Lincoln Red stock was listed as not at risk in 2007 and as endangered-maintained in 2022.

The Rare Breeds Survival Trust publishes an annual watchlist of native British breeds and runs a gene bank for rare livestock. The page reviewed for this entry does not give breed-specific numbers, so check the current watchlist for up-to-date counts.

Keep reading about cattle breeds

For more on how regional breeds shaped beef production, visit the ranching section on farm.FM, which also carries a story about cattle breeds you can read next.