What once was a popular breed of cattle in New Zealand and now classified as rare, the Galloway is known for its own unique, distinctive characteristics, due to the environment the breed evolved from.
Galloway are one of the oldest cattle breeds known, dating back to the 1600’s from the Galloway region of Scotland.
Originally there were several variations within the breed, with many different colours and patterns: a solid black, red or dun (tan). Another variation is the belted Galloway, which has a distinctive white belt around the middle of its body. It is not clear exactly where the belted Galloway originated from, but it is thought to be the result of cross-breeding with a similar-coloured breed called the Dutch Lakenvelder.
The Galloway cattle society was formed in 1877, with the belted being established as a separate breed in 1921.
By the twentieth century, the belted Galloway had been exported to many countries throughout the world, including Australia, USA, Canada, Brazil, France, Germany, and New Zealand, where they first arrived in 1947. Being extremely hardy, excellent foragers able to thrive well in cold, rough, or hilly country, were the reasons for importing them to New Zealand. However, despite these qualities, they have not become established as a major breed and today there are only a few herds in New Zealand.
In recent times the White Galloway has been an addition to the breed. These cattle have a white body with a black nose and ears, and their history can be traced to Montana, USA.
Unfortunately, along with many other breeds, the Galloway suffered during the outbreak of the foot-and-mouth disease in the United Kingdom in 2001 with a lot of the population lost. By 2007, numbers had recovered, and they were removed from the endangered native breed watchlist.
Galloways have always been a beef breed, and their superb meat has been recorded for hundreds of years. It consistently achieves desirable results in carcass quality with its fat depth, meat colour and its pH level, making it a tasty and tender product.
Galloways have great resilience, being able to cope with feed shortages and recover quickly from drought and harsh winter conditions and when times are tough, they do what they do best and that is convert marginal feed into beef. They are known to eat anything and like to browse around rather than be a heavy grazer. They can be on good feed and like a goat, they will supplement their diet with some rough grass.
Another trait that makes them different is when a newborn behaves like a deer fawn. It gets up and has a drink off its mother and then it will find a place to hide and sleep, where it will stay and wait for its mother whilst she goes away to graze. Other breeds would naturally keep close to their mother at all times. They are easy calving, grow rapidly and the dam has a long-life span, with a great ability to rear her calf under all conditions.
But the characteristic that sets them apart from any other cattle breed is their thick double-layered, weather resistant, shaggy, and curly coat. The undercoat insulates their body so well, that they only need a minimal outer layer on their body which eliminates waste at slaughter.
Along with stiffer guard hair that help shed water, they are well adaptable to harsh climates with the coat then shedding in the warmer summer months. There is only one other animal on the planet with a similar coat and similar meat, that being the bison but there is no genetic relationship.
The New Zealand Galloway Society will host the World Galloway Congress in 2025 in Invercargill and Queenstown.