The Cattle Breed that was an Oddity

What famous breed of cattle was once considered a freak at the Kansas City Livestock Expo? Got the answer? I'm Jeff Keane, stay tuned until after the break and we will see if you have it right. At the Kansas City Livestock Exposition in 1873 a new Scottish breed of cattle without horns was turning heads and receiving comments. And they sure weren't complements. Here's Susan Allen with a bit on the origins of one of our most important cattle breeds. When a man name George Grant exhibited two of his four bulls he had just brought from Scotland at the 1873 Livestock Expo in Kansas City, with their hornless polled heads the cattle were considered to be freaks probably because they looked so different then the Shorthorn, the most popular breed at the time. The comments didn't seem to bother Mr. Grant whose initial plan was to build Scottish colonies that would provide an endless supply of beef for Europe. So he bred his black polled bulls with Texas longhorns and found that darned if those black calves didn't wintered better, and weigh more in the Spring. And the rest they say is history! You know Susan,  it's pretty amazing to think that the American Angus Association was formed way back in 1883 and by 1887 twelve hundred head from Scotland had already arrived to the plains state&. and the growth hasn't stopped . The American Angus Association registers more cattle per year than any other and is our largest beef breed registry in the world. .