Miniature Hereford Cattle

Miniature Herefords were created nearly 38 years ago, by the Largeant family, but there are still relatively few of them in the world today. They have become increasingly popular in America, Canada and Australia, but there are still very few of them in the UK and Europe. Mainly due to the import regulations and the difficulties and costs involved with the use of the embryo transfer option

We fell in love with Miniature Hereford Cattle a few years back, and decided due to the expense of heading completely down the embryo route that along side trying a few embryos we would also get a few dexters and see how well they crossed with a Miniature Hereford bull. The Dexter is the smallest native breed of cattle in the British Isles, it a dual purpose breed originating from Ireland. It produces milk as well as great tasting beef, but its dual purpose conformation limits the amount of meat it produces.

The crosses were a great success, hybrid vigour worked well and the crossbred cows had the lovely nature of the Hereford whilst keeping the milkiness of the Dexter. The meat is fantastic as well as it combines the depth of flavour from the Dexter with the marbling of the Hereford, which gained us 2 stars in the great taste awards 2016 when we entered our rib of beef. We also love looking after these small cattle have lots of benefits as not only are they are easier to handle but also poach the land less, so can stay out in the fields grazing for a larger portion of the year. Our long term aim is to keep crossing a miniature Hereford bulls on furture offspring until eventually we have a herd of purebred miniature Hereford cattle producing a lots of beautiful beef. You can read more about our Miniature Hereford story so far.