Cattle breeds
Gelbvieh

A breed that has almost disappeared in Switzerland

With lyrics like «Go call the brown ones, go call the yellow ones», the Swiss folk song «Gang rüef de Bruune, gang rüef de Gääle…» , originally from the Appenzell region, shows that cattle have always been diverse in terms of colour, as well as size and other characteristics. However, ‘yellow’ animals are quite rarely seen on pastures these days. Gelbvieh (meaning ‘yellow cattle’), also known as Frankenvieh, are among the 39 breeds represented in the Swiss beef cattle herd book, but there are not even a handful of these animals in Switzerland. Gelbvieh were originally native to the Franconia region of southern Germany.

Gelbvieh are descendants of rather small reddish-brown Celtic-Germanic cattle. Around the year 1800 and onwards, heavy draught oxen were in demand, so various larger cattle breeds were cross-bred. Using Swiss Simmental cattle, the breeding of single-coloured yellow cattle began around 1875. These animals are not demanding in terms of feed. They used to be kept for draught power, milk and beef, but are now kept either as a dual-purpose breed or solely for beef.

Franconian cattle: between extinction and revival

The Gelbvieh has been on Germany’s Red List of Threatened Livestock Breeds since 2008. The GEH, a German national association for the conservation of old and endangered domestic animal breeds, has declared it the 2025 ‘endangered livestock breed of the year’. Far from its homeland, its population trend is much more favourable. The yellow colouring is of secondary importance there though: In Canada and the USA, for example, representatives of the Frankenvieh breed now mainly have black coats.

Sources : www.g-e-h.de; wikipédia; Tierwelt 27.05.2019