Cattle

CATTLE

CATTLE arrived in Florida before 1600 with early Spanish settlers. A shipment in 1611 initiated cattle raising in Virginia; the Pilgrims began with a few of the Devonshire breed in 1624. Black and white Dutch cattle were brought to New Amsterdam in 1625. John Mason imported large yellow cattle from Denmark into New Hampshire in 1633. Although losses of cattle during the ocean voyages were heavy, they increased rapidly in all the colonies and soon were exported to the West Indies, both live and as salted barreled beef.

Interest in improved livestock, based upon English efforts, came at the close of the American Revolution when Bakewell, or improved longhorn cattle, were imported, followed by shorthorns, sometimes called Durhams, and Devons. Henry Clay first imported Herefords in 1817. Substantial numbers of Aberdeen Angus did not reach the United States from Scotland until after the Civil War. By the 1880s, some of the shorthorns were being developed as dairy stock. By the 1860s other dairy breeds had been established—the Holstein-Friesian breed, based upon stock from Holland, and the Brown Swiss. Even earlier, Ayrshires, Jerseys, and Guernseys were raised as dairy cattle.

Cattle growers in the Northeast and across the Midwest relied on selective breeding, fencing, and haymaking, as well as built structures. Dairying began in New York State and spread across the northern regions of the country. Cheese production increased in the North during the Civil War. Butter making was a substantial source of income for many rural households. Cattle-raising techniques in the southern regions included open grazing, the use of salt and cow pens to manage herds, as well as dogs and whips to control animals. Southern practices included droving, branding, and roundups early in American history.

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During the Civil War, longhorn cattle, descendants of Spanish stock, grew up unchecked on the Texas plains. After other attempts to market these cattle failed, Joseph G. McCoy made arrangements to ship them from the railhead at Abilene, Kansas, and in 1867 the long drives from Texas to the railheads began. Midwestern farms diversified by fattening trailed animals on corn before shipping to market, leading to the feedlot industry. In 1868 iced rail cars were adopted, allowing fresh beef, rather than live animals, to be shipped to market. Chicago became a center for the meatpacking industry.

Overgrazing, disastrous weather, and settlement by homesteaders brought the range cattle industry to an end after 1887. The invention of barbed wire by Joseph Glidden in the 1870s made fencing the treeless plains possible, ending free-ranging droving of cattle. Fencing allowed selective breeding and also minimized infection from tick fever by limiting the mobility of cattle.

While dairy breeds did not change, productivity per cow increased greatly. Dairy technology improved, and the areas of supply were extended. Homogenization, controls of butterfat percentage, and drying changed traditional milk production and consumption. The industry also became subject to high standards of sanitation.

By the 1980s, hormones and antibiotics were used to boost production of meat and milk while cutting costs to the producer. By 1998, 90 percent of all beef cattle were given hormone implants, boosting weight and cutting expenses by 7 percent. In the 1990s, mad cow disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, was identified in Britain. Related to a human disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, it was believed to be caused by feeding infected rendered animal products to cattle. Worldwide attention focused on cattle feeding and health. In 2001, foot-and-mouth disease swept through herds in many countries. Neither disease appeared in U.S. cattle.

Artificial insemination technology grew significantly. Eggs from prize cows were harvested and then fertilized in the laboratory, and the frozen embryos were implanted in other cows or exported to cattle-growing markets around the world. In 1998 the first cloned calf was created in Japan; by 2001, researchers at the University of Georgia had reproduced eight cloned calves. Cattle by-products from meat slaughter were significant in the pharmaceutical and health care industry. In 2001, artificial human blood was experimentally synthesized from cattle blood.

Grazing on public lands in the West was criticized in the 1980s, focusing attention on federal government–administered leases. At the same time, holistic grazing techniques grew in popularity, resulting from Allan Savory's work to renew desertified pastures through planned intensive grazing.

In 1998, slaughter cattle weighed 20 pounds more (with an average total of 1,194 pounds) than the year before; smaller numbers of cattle were going to market, but the meat yield was higher. The number of beef cattle slaughtered dropped 12 percent between 1998 and 2000. Per capita beef consumption dropped between 1980 and 2000 by 7 pounds, to 69.5 pounds per person, but began rising in 1998–1999. Total retail beef consumption rose from $40.7 billion in 1980 to $58.6 billion in 2000. In 1999, average milk production per dairy cow was 17,771 pounds per year; the total milk production was 163 billion pounds.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Carlson, Laurie Winn. Cattle: An Informal Social History. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001.

Jordan, Terry G. North American Cattle-Ranching Frontiers: Origins, Diffusion, and Differentiation. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993.

Laurie Winn Carlson

Wayne D. Rasmussen

See also Cowboys ; Dairy Industry ; Livestock Industry ; Meatpacking .