New breeding herd at Lorsch, Germany

Although there has been a setback for the project recently, there are good news from the Auerrind project. They just set up a breeding herd composed of Thando, the young Watussi bull, and three young Sayaguesa cows plus two young Maremmana cows at Lorsch. 

The reason behind that is that Thando is still not ready to cover the Chianina cows, as originally planned, but the time can be seized to produce some experimental crosses. I am happy because the combination Watussi x Sayaguesa will be interesting to see; I think that a cross animal with a high portion of Sayaguesa and Watussi influence has the potential to optically resemble the aurochs to a large extent, especially because the Sayaguesa the Auerrindprojekt is working with are from a good herd. Of course the work would not be done with that alone, especially because the sensitivity to cold climate of Watussi needs to be compensated, but without question the results will be very interesting to look at. 

Photo owned by auerrind.wordpress.com

As I wrote above, these combinations are experimental crosses to get more clues on the heredity of certain traits like horn size or fur colour. The original plan of a Watussi x Chianina strain is still a goal of the project. 

EDIT: I was just informed by Claus Kropp that it is also planned to let the Chianina cows be covered by the young Sayaguesa bull in the meantime - that means more of the combination Sayaguesa x Chianina which we already know from the Lippeaue, and I am happy about that. A "true F2" of that combination has the potential to result in large, well-built animals with an acceptable colour. The horns would be rather small, but since the project is also working with Watussi, I do not worry that much about that aspect.