Hereford cattle

The Hereford is a British breed of beef cattle originally from Herefordshire in the West Midlands of England. It was the result of selective breeding from the mid-eighteenth century by a few families in Herefordshire, beginning some decades before the noted work of Robert Bakewell. It has spread to many countries; in 2023 the populations reported by 62 countries totalled over seven million head; populations of over 100000 were reported by Uruguay, Brazil and Chile. The breed reached Ireland in 1775, and a few went to Kentucky in the United States in 1817; the modern American Hereford derives from a herd established in 1840 in Albany, New York. It was present in Australia before 1850, and in Argentina from 1858. In the twenty-first century there are breed societies in those countries and in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden in Europe; in Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay in South America; in New Zealand; and in South Africa.