Welsh Black Cattle: The Hill Breed That Walked Wales to Market

What is a Welsh Black?

The Welsh Black is the native cattle breed of Wales and one of Britain's oldest. According to the Welsh Black Cattle Society, the cattle have lived in the Welsh hills since pre-Roman and pre-Christian times, and black cattle have been bred in Wales for well over a thousand years. The origins are not fully documented. The society says the ancient Britons prized the cattle when they retreated west from the Saxons.

The cattle are naturally black, usually with white horns tipped in black. Horns may be removed, and naturally hornless strains exist. Red animals occur occasionally, and other colors were more common in the past, as Bite Size Britain notes.

Why were Welsh Blacks called black gold?

Black cattle were used as currency in Wales, which led to the nickname black gold from the Welsh hills. Drovers walked herds for weeks to markets in England and returned home with large sums of money, which made them targets for bandits and highwaymen.

Bite Size Britain reports that the risk of robbery led to the Bank of the Black Ox, which operated until 1909, when Lloyds Bank absorbed it. A Wikipedia account of the breed says the bank was founded in Llandovery in 1799 to serve drovers, and that by the turn of the nineteenth century about 25,000 cattle were exported from Wales each year, mostly driven to English markets. Treat that annual figure as a reported estimate.

North Wales and South Wales types

Until the early 1970s the Welsh Black was regarded as a dual-purpose breed, used for both dairy and beef. Two distinct strains existed: a stocky north Wales beef type and a more dairy-like south Wales type, also called the Castlemartin. Over roughly the past ninety years, The Cattle Site says, the strains intermingled, producing an animal of optimum size with an emphasis on beef.

The modern Welsh Black combines the strengths of both strains. The society describes medium-sized suckler dams that are easy to manage, rearing strong calves whether pure bred or crossbred, which suit both traditional and intensive beef finishing systems.

How Welsh Black cattle perform

The Cattle Site breed profile calls the Welsh Black among the fastest growing British breeds for growth rate and weight for age, with carcasses that are generally marbled, carrying maximum muscle and minimal fat. The breed is noted for hardiness, ease of calving and mothering ability, and bulls are noted for fertility.

Cows give about 4,000 liters in an even lactation of nine to eleven months and often calve regularly to fifteen or twenty years of age, according to the same profile. That longevity suits marginal and upland farms, where the breed forages well. Its hardiness also suits rough pasture such as heathland and moorland, and it is used for conservation grazing.

Welsh Blacks around the world

Before the 1960s few Welsh Blacks were exported outside the United Kingdom. The Cattle Site says that over the past thirty years they have gone to Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Spain, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Uganda and Jamaica. The Welsh Black is also on the list of endangered native breeds in Wales, so the breed's home herds matter to its future.

Learn more

To follow the breed further, start with the Welsh Black Cattle Society. For other stories from cattle country, see the ranching section of farm.FM and a story about cattle breeds on the same site.