The Bestuzhev breed of cattle was bred at the beginning of the 18th century in the Ulyanovsk region and has a meat and dairy orientation. These cows are unpretentious in care, undemanding to pastures, and have good immunity. The breed is distinguished by an excellent percentage of meat yield at slaughter and fat milk content.
Bestuzhev breed of cattle
Origin
The birthplace of the breed is the village of Repyevka, which was located on the territory of the modern Novospassky district of the Ulyanovsk region. Here, at the end of the 18th century, the landowner and breeder Bestuzhev lived.
When breeding a new type of cow, cattle belonging to the following breeds were used:
- Simmental;
- Dutch
- shorthorn.
For crossing with breeding stock, Bestuzhev selected the most promising local cows. His main goal was to obtain a healthy, unpretentious animal with good milk yield. The bred livestock was bred “in itself” for a long time and received a meat and dairy orientation.
At the end of the 19th century, two experimental stations became interested in Bestuzhevka: Annenkovskaya and Bezenchukskaya. At both enterprises, breeding work was carried out with breeding bulls, in the first case, the seed material of the Wilstermarsh breed was used, in the second, the Shorthorn.
Currently, Bestuzhev cows are bred on farms in Bashkiria, Tatarstan, as well as in the Ulyanovsk and Samara regions.
Description
Cows of the Bestuzhev breed have a red color of varying intensity – from light to dark red. According to the standard, white marks on the body are allowed. Usually light spots are located near the udder and legs or on the head of the animal. The nose of Bestuzhev cows is black.
Description of the cow of the Bestuzhev breed
This cattle has the following features:
- The head is dry, neat, of medium size.
- Wrinkled neck, compact.
- The horns are large, powerful, light in color.
- The chest is powerful, well developed.
- The back is straight, the loin is large.
- The udder is cup-shaped of medium volume with widely spaced teats.
Calves are born weighing 30-35 kg. Adult cows weigh 480-560 kg, and bulls from 700 kg.
Reference! The slaughter yield for fattening bulls is 58-60%.
Young animals at 6 months have a body weight of 160-180 kg. With a balanced diet, one-year-old bulls of the Bestuzhev breed easily reach a weight of 500 kg. Bulls-record holders have a body weight of more than 1 ton.
Exterior flaws:
- weak hocks;
- incorrect position of the legs;
- interception behind the shoulder blades;
- asthenic physique;
- vicious form of the sacrum.
Bulls that have received low marks for conformation during grading, as a rule, are not used in breeding.
Productivity
The Bestuzhev breed of cows has a dual focus and cannot boast the same productivity as pure dairy cattle. Milk yields in private farmsteads average 3000-3500 kg. At breeding plants, bestuzhevkas give 4000-4800 kg. The fat content of milk on private farmsteads is 3,7-3,9%, on farms – 3,8-4%. In some cows, this figure reaches 5-5,5%.
Reference! Bestuzhev cows have an excellent protein content in milk – from 3,3% to 3,5%.
The uterus of the breeding plant named after Lenin from Bashkiria gives more than 5000 kg of milk per lactation. For the 4th lactation, 10 kg were milked from the record-breaking cow Leah, and 007 kg from another queen, Fables.
Milk yield of Bestuzhev cows
Advantages of the breed
Bestuzhev cattle is zoned for the Volga region and has a lot of advantages:
- excellent meat and stable dairy qualities;
- practically insensitive to infectious diseases;
- has strong immunity;
- cows have a low rate of gynecological problems;
- the incidence of leukemia is below 1%;
- easily tolerates both extreme heat and frost;
- well adapted to any kind of pasture;
- unpretentious to feed.
Bestuzhev cattle is of great value to Russia, but only a small proportion of farms breed it. In many farms there is Holsteinization and Simmentalization of this breed. But for a private farmstead, the Bestuzhev cow is ideal: it is unpretentious, undemanding to feed and at the same time shows a good level of milk production throughout lactation.
