Where Does The Belt Come From 2 of 3

The BueLingo, Where does the belt come from? PART 2 of 3
Second of three parts compiled by Russell Bueling

In the county of Wales, there is the Bolian Gwynion cattle, which are better known to us as Welsh Blacks, Lord Stewart writes that there are records in the fair books in Pembroke Wales from 1600 to 1602 that describe the Welsh Cattle. At that time there were several colors of Welsh cattle which were later molded into what are known today as Welsh Blacks.

In 1842 Professor Low mentions that the belted cattle were not confined to any one breed that was in existence at that time. A Mr. Bryner Jones, a former Welsh Secretary to the ministry of agriculture in his papers, which are in the national Library in Wales, refers to the sheeted, belted, or Welsh striped cow. These cattle are mentioned in several writings at that time, so it is known that belted cattle did exist.

When Lord Stewart visited Wales in 1961, he mentions that he still found several herds that had belted animals in them, and on a farm near the town of Dalellau, he saw fifteen belted cows in one herd of Welsh Black cattle. However, since the Welsh government registers all of the cattle there they will not allow the registry of any animal that has any white markings, so the belted variety has pretty much died out.

According to David Low, the belting characteristic used to be quite frequent among Galloway cattle in their early development. Many of the belted Galloway herds today, seem to go back to blood from a herd in Northern England, Lady Melville, who had several farms and encouraged her tenants to breed them true to the belted color. These seem to have found their way into Scotland and were crossed with the Galloway cattle of Southwest Scotland, by several breeders about the time the cattle improvement was started, in that part of the world.

The belted cattle from Northumberland, were said to be bigger framed than the black Galloway cattle and less wild, but just as hardy, and better milkers; though their hair was not so long and silky. In my observations, after seeing about 25 herds of belted Galloways, I think that this also true today. This leads me to believe that the Belted Galloways as we know them today, do carry blood of Dutch Lakenvelders back in their ancestry.

The last trip that I made to Scotland, was in 1983, and I visited about 15 of the more prominent herds of Belted Galloway cattle and I also attended the Royal Highland Show at Edinburgh where the belted Galloway Cattle were shown in fairly large numbers. Most of the herds that I saw seemed to be breeding quite true to color, but they were of a fairly small frame size and were quite short of leg.

In Holland is a breed of cattle named the Lakenvelder. Like ourselves the Dutch do not know the origin of their belted cattle, or their history before the 18th century. They call them Lakenvelders, a name derived from Laken, and sheet or veld, a field, from the notion that the cattle have a sheet or blanket wrapped around them. The meaning of the name seems to be Field of Blankets or Blanketed field.

The first record of these beasts in Holland is given by historian J. Herkhey, who writes: In 1796 he saw an entire herd of 15 or 16 cows and a bull in a field near the Bishopric of Utrecht. And it has to be assumed that there were Lakenvelder cattle in Holland as early as the 17th century, and that they were produced by selective breeding. It is believed that there was a hereditary characteristic for belting in the cattle and that this was fostered by selective breeding.

The Lakenvelder cattle were found mostly in about three districts in Holland. A cattle plague that struck Europe in the late 1880ís was largely responsible for reducing the numbers of Lakenvelder cattle in Holland. After the loss of thousands of Hollands cattle, many Holstein Fresian cattle were imported into Holland, mainly from Germany and Denmark. Since the Fresian breed were larger cattle and gave more milk the government took over the registry of the cattle and would not allow but pure Fresian bulls to be used.

In an attempt to preserve the breed for posterity, Mr. E Van Muilwijk founded the Lakenvelder herd book in July 1918, when he estimated that there were about 300 Lakenvelder cattle left in Holland in the hands of some 12 to 15 breeders. It was believed in Holland that the Fresian cattle were a superior breed to all dairy breeds, and that it was the only breed that could not be improved by cross breeding. The claim was that you could cross a Holstein Fresian with any other dairy breed and that the resulting cross would give less milk than a purebred Fresian. However, quite a few of the farmers did cross their Fresian cows with the Lakenvelders and the farmers of that time said that many of their Fresian cows did carry Lakenvelder blood. It has been reported that by 1961, there were only three breeders of Lakenvelder cattle left in Holland, and that the government demands that only Fresian bulls could be used, had a detrimental effect on the ones that were left.

The Lakenvelder cattle were imported into America in 1838 by D. H. Haight of Goshen, New York. Other importations were made by P. T. Barnum and a Mr. H. W. Coleman of Cornwall, Pennsylvania and from these three importations almost all of the Dutch Belted cattle of America were descended.

When the breed was imported into America, they went by the name of Dutch Belted. Presumably as a lot of people could not remember the word Lakenvelder. In 1886, the Dutch Belted Cattle Association was formed. And by 1901 these cattle were distributed into 26 states. By 1916 there were 1500 Dutch Belted cattle in the breed registry. The breed literature at that time described them as a little smaller than a Fresian, but larger than a Gurnsey, and likened them in appearance and size to an Ayrshire. This literature went on to say, compared with the Fresians, the Dutch Belts were a little finer in the muzzle an a trifle more prominent at the poll, with horns wider spread and more uniformly turned upwards at the points. Their birth weights were given at from 60 to 90 pounds and mature cows weigh from 900 to 1500 pounds with the average for cows being 1200 pounds.

A great deal was done for breed by Mr. J. A. Wilson from Maine; Dr. J. G. Dupuis from Florida; and Mr. T. Simpson from Iowa; who were largely responsible for the early advanced registrations of the cattle. Unfortunately, as a result of wartime difficulties and death of some of the breeders, registartions became somewhat neglected and by 1957 the association listed only twenty members. This association became inactive, so in April 1988 a new association was formed which is called the White Belt Cattle Association. This new association also registers cattle of the Gurtenveh and Sommerset blood, so they register cattle that are Black belted, red belted or brown belted.

Belting has also been known to occur in some of the Zebu cattle. I have personally seen three Brahman steers in a feed lot near Mesa, Arizona that carried full belts and were of brown color. I have also seen pictures of belted cattle from the Shetland Islands.

So it seems that certain breeds carry the belting gene and it is stronger in some breeds than others. It seems to be quite a dominant gene and sometimes will carry on for generations after no belted animals have been used. In a later issue, I will describe how the BueLingo cattle were formed and what their background is.

[Where does the belt come from? Part 1]
[Where does the belt come from? Part 3]