Cattle breeds
The Tyrolean Grey

The Tyrolean Grey is around ten centimetres taller and a hundred kilograms heavier than its little sister, the Rhaetian Grey. However, it too originally comes from the Alps and is very sure-footed in the mountains. Is the Tyrolean Grey truly one of the few breeds that graze on slopes with their heads pointing downhill? It is noticeable that most cows stand parallel to ground level, or with the head pointing slightly uphill. Not the Tyrolean Grey though.

Between valleys and times

The Tyrolean Grey has more in common with the Rhaetian Grey than just colour: Its history is also similar. It has its origins in the arch of the Alps, spanning Italy, Austria and Switzerland. In the various valleys, different varieties developed, which split to form the Swiss Brown and Tyrolean Grey breeds at the end of the 19th century. From the 1920s onwards in Switzerland, the Swiss Brown, with its better milk yield, replaced the Tyrolean Grey, which had been bred as triple-purpose cattle. Fortunately, the Tyrolean Grey survived in the valleys of neighbouring countries, which meant it could be imported into Switzerland from the 1980s onwards.

The Tyrolean Grey is a still dual-purpose bovine. It is kept as a dairy or suckler cow, mostly on small farms with family connections. The influence of Tyrol and South Tyrol is quite evident to some extent, as in those regions, the Tyrolean Grey was bred more for milk.

Incidentally, the Tyrolean Grey’s coat is anything but uniform in colour: The calves are born silver-grey, almost white, and darken later. The bulls in particular can have an almost black coat. Many of the animals can be seen to have an almost white coat in summer, which darkens again in autumn and winter.