Herens bull

Here is a cut and paste of a Herens bull from Switzerland. This is also a genetic cousin of the Kerry cow. I guess you can say the genetic root of the "celtic cow" may have started with the genetic root of the Celtic people?

From the hand holding the bull, I'd think they aren't overly large animals. I grabbed this late at night once a while back. Thought I'd ad it to the mix for those researching the genetic make up of the celtic cattle breeds.


It would also be nice to see if someone can find more about the two migrations of people from Ireland and Kernowek (Cornwall) to Brittany and see if there is anything more about the influence of the Britonne and Irish breeds.

Also the Devon may be mixed up in this due to the celtic people from there being driven back into Cornwall and then out some time ago. Again, rusty history rattling in the back of my head today, but worth looking into how that breed went into influencing the other breeds or back the other way...

In an old book I have West Country Stories by A.L. Rowse he notes (pg 103) "The deer-parks were a very important part in the economy of the Duchy. When it was constituted there were seven: Kerrybullock (now Stokeclimsland), with 150 deer....With movement for enclosure that grew strong in the sixteenth century, Henry VIII decided to dispark the Duchy parks and turn them more profitably into pasture. It is the site of Kerrybullock Park, in the parish of Stokeclimsland, that the large Duchy farm now occupies..."

Laurence Gilley has scanned books on the M. Devon breed for the Milking Devon web site. You can run through some of them. One notes that the Cornish version of the M. Devon is not so pure and has influences of other breeds. I'd have to go back and see which one it was. Not very kind about the Cornish influence, but British history has never been overly kind toward any Celtic people, let it be Ireland or Cornwall.