Gelbvieh cattle

Gelbvieh cattle

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
In a conversation with Creston Washington cattle rancher, Dawn Nelson, she mentioned her herd of cattle and I asked her to expand. “My husband is fifth generation cattle rancher. We run their ranch and we turned it into a registered Gelbvieh ranch. We used to run 500 mother cows and after a bout with cancer, I went down to just 200 had that we can manage without any hired hands. We enjoy it, the cattle are selling well. We have a reputation around the area to raise big Gelbvieh cattle with a lot of butts and guts, good milk. You don’t hear a lot about Gelbvieh cattle. It’s a German breed that came over in 1980. It’s a relatively new breed to America. You look at them and they look like a muscled up Angus cow. They are a milk and beef breed. They have high butterfat content in their milk. They are really good cows and they do well in our temperature extremes which can go from triple digit heat to subzero. They do well with any of it. And they grade out really well. It’s going to go onto somebody’s plate someday so the end product is actually a very easy tenderizing, easy fleshening beef that is well marbled.

 

Like most European breeds the Gelbvieh was originally selected for meat, milk and work. Speaking of work, Dawn has written several books concerned with ranching.

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