Quietest breeds of cattle and sheep

[kill]

Quietest cow I have ever seen was a Lincoln Red but boy wasn't she stubborn, if she decided not to go in a cattle crush or through a gateway you couldn't make her, end of.
Ruby Red Devon's are just as stubborn.

I run all but pure breed limo's on to a pedigree Limo bull and find them generally very easy to deal with as pure breed cattle generally are far easier to deal with than cross breed's for some reason.
I'd love to use a British Blue bull as I have seen some lovely calves on this cross but unsure if calves would have such a good temperament

Edit Have just read Genuine Risk post further up the page and BB bull may well be next here

 

[PostHarvest]

I keep Dexters. OK I know they are hobby cattle. I've found that most vets hate them because they can be nasty and many people who are playing at farming don't have any decent handling equipment. They also tend to buy a Dexter or two, chuck them in a weed patch and let them get on with it - so of course they are wild
Mine are bred to be docile and handled regularly so are good to handle and deal with. So my answer, is its all about the way you treat the cattle.

 

[AGN76]

Edit Have just read Genuine Risk post further up the page and BB bull may well be next here

We use Blue to cool down our slightly livier Lims, we have one cow out of a complete fruitcake and she is very quiet, she doesn't like the vet though, and I find it fascinating as you can almost see the Blue genes wrestling the Lim genes!

 

[JP1]

In Germany, these are very popular. Towed in to a field as a mobile handling system and often used to walk cattle from grazing to the barn

 

[jendan]

I don't really know which is the quietest breed of cattle but I do know that an investment of time and effort in managing potential replacement heifers pays off.

I start the selection process after weaning or during the winter, walk among them daily, scratch their tailheads, stand and watch, teach them about walking quietly into the race to get weighed and other things.

By the time they are 15 months they are comfortable around me and with me touching them and they'll come willingly when I ask because they trust me. If not, they won't enter the breeding herd.

I have virtually no trouble calving heifers, they take to their calves no bother and get back in calf again fine.
I appreciate its not always possible to be so hands on with a larger herd but I do think that spending time with replacement heifers is a good investment for the future.

Its good to do this but all suckler heifers and cows of any breed can be unpredictable just after they calve.They will nearly all take to their calves no bother as well.The problem is when you find yourself inbetween said heifer or cow and her calf just after she has calved.I think some of them get worse aswell the older they get.

 

[Wolds Beef]

@JP1 Have a look at the flying farmer(Michael Midgley) Website. Mike works with the authoritys all over the country, with his kit to sort out problems. It is very good if your facilities are not good for TB testing or the like!!
WB

 

[Wolds Beef]

@yellowbelly Well done you! If they are looking for quiet animals from the Lincoln Reds they want to find animals that are halter and show trained. But all Lincolns are relatively quiet. The Autumn sale is 'Ladies day' at Newark and they will find some of the animals are halter trained.
WB

 

[Wolds Beef]

@Paul E Martin breeds the Lincoln Longwool. It made farmers on the Lincoln Heath rich in Tudor and Elizabethan times, hence the wool churches along the Heath villages. Sadly, it is not the case now!!!
WB

 

[GTB]

I think creep feeders are the work of the devil as regards wild cattle. When I was a kid we used to feed our calves twice a day in troughs. By the end of the winter the calves would be so tame you'd have to fight through them at feeding time. These days there's a creep feeder in the shed and it's filled every few days by a loader so not so much human contact. Luckily our Herefords are pretty calm but when we had Lims it was a different matter.

 

[Henarar]

Quietest cow I have ever seen was a Lincoln Red but boy wasn't she stubborn, if she decided not to go in a cattle crush or through a gateway you couldn't make her, end of.

why does that not surprise me

 

[Henarar]

Edit Have just read Genuine Risk post further up the page and BB bull may well be next here

we have a few blues out of lims and they are fine for temperament
blue cross could well help there milk as well, some pure blues milk very well

 

[Dry Rot]

I don't really know which is the quietest breed of cattle but I do know that an investment of time and effort in managing potential replacement heifers pays off.

I start the selection process after weaning or during the winter, walk among them daily, scratch their tailheads, stand and watch, teach them about walking quietly into the race to get weighed and other things.

By the time they are 15 months they are comfortable around me and with me touching them and they'll come willingly when I ask because they trust me. If not, they won't enter the breeding herd.

I have virtually no trouble calving heifers, they take to their calves no bother and get back in calf again fine.
I appreciate its not always possible to be so hands on with a larger herd but I do think that spending time with replacement heifers is a good investment for the future.

This ^^^^. I used to let my grass for grazing. The cattle at first would be huddled in a corner of the field. Every time I opened a gate to let the cattle onto fresh grass, I'd give a shout. When the owner came to take the cattle away at the end of the summer, I had a load in the pen ready for him. Now these are beef cattle off the hill of various crosses and not particularly quiet. The owner said he'd come for the second load and bring his motorbike so he could drive the cattle into the loading pen. But he didn't need to have bothered. I just opened the pen gate and called them in! He told me that for years after, those catle would always come to a call, even out on the hill.

 

[AGN76]

^^^ is any breed/x breed the quietest with good, prolonged handling? We walk through ours 3 or 4 times a day in the field and chalk their backsides there. We run the heifers with the cows and in the end they get sick of jumping up to move and we have to walk round them by end of the summer.

 

[milkloss]

Some breeds are more suited to certain systems than others. Going from dairy to beef we have really struggled with docility or tameness. We do feed the in calf heifers in the trough but only to get that daily human contact which does help.

Any animal we have that has been bottle fed or treated long term is docile. Anything that doesn't need assistance and looks after herself and calf is usually wary.

Now we have numbers up we sort the replacement heifers and put them in the yard, anything with head up or hiding at the back goes down the road. I would say it's working quite well. I also walk round the yards with a pocket full of cake for the goofy ones and it encourages the more timid animals to come for a look see.

 

[M-J-G]

Quietest cow I have ever seen was a Lincoln Red but boy wasn't she stubborn, if she decided not to go in a cattle crush or through a gateway you couldn't make her, end of.
Ruby Red Devon's are just as stubborn.

I've had a lot like that over the years, the only choice is to cull them or make a handling system where they don't have a choice other than just go in.

Any other option takes up too much time.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Is it crossing that makes some wild .pure Lims seem quiet . Belgian Blue seem the quietest of modern beef breeds if crossed

 

[crofteress]

I love the 2 blue x lim cows I bought, they mix right in with the luings and sim luings for temperament, they are as quiet as any of them

 

[Cowgirl]

It's very true that any animal, of any species, will become quieter with regular handling. In fact you could call it training. You wouldn't nowadays expect to jump on the back of a young horse without handling it first. But what I thought the OP meant was what breeds are "naturally quiet" ie will allow handling without "training". The quietest of our OP Herefords have been mainly the AI calves by 1970s MMB bulls, and some (not all) of these have been so quiet that they can be stroked by anyone in the field from a young age. Even in Herefords I do wonder if temperament is not as important a selection trait as it used to be, but all the OP breeders I know would rapidly dispose of any cow which was "calf proud".