Herefords were once solid red; the white face came later
Before the 18th century, Herefordshire cattle looked like other southern English stock: entirely red with a white tail switch. Crossing with other breeds, chiefly Shorthorns, produced herds of yellow, grey and light brown before the white face became fixed. Today more than seven million Herefords live in 62 countries.
The breed grew out of selective breeding by a handful of Herefordshire families from the middle of the 18th century, several decades before Robert Bakewell's better-known improvements. The aim was an animal for both draught work and beef. By the end of that century the white face was well established, and the modern colouring settled during the 19th.
Exports began early. Herefords reached Ireland in 1775, and the politician Henry Clay brought a few to Kentucky around 1817, although today's American Herefords trace back to a herd founded at Albany, New York, in 1840. The breed was in Australia before 1850 and Argentina from 1858. In 2023, Uruguay, Brazil and Chile each reported more than 100,000 head, and the animals still appear in the Herefordshire countryside and at its agricultural shows.
A hornless line emerged in the United States. A natural polled mutation was bred into a separate type from 1889, and Iowa rancher Warren Gammon started its registry with 11 naturally hornless cattle. The American Polled Hereford Association formed in 1910, and since 1995 horned and polled lines have shared one American Hereford Association; Australians call them Poll Herefords. Crossing with other breeds has changed many strains, so the Traditional Hereford, which kept older traits such as hardiness and thrift, is now treated as a minority breed valued for conservation.
Pale skin creates problems. Eye cancer is more common in sunny countries and in animals with little pigment around the eyes; North American studies found pigment on the lids and eyeball surface is heritable and probably lowers the risk. Light udder skin can sunburn. Dwarfism also occurs, caused by a recessive gene that affects heifers and bulls equally.
Source: Hereford cattle
