Red Angus

The Red Angus breed has the exact same origins of the Aberdeen Angus. Originally it was brought in by the Vikings from Europe and introduced to England and Scotland, these cattle were small, dun-coloured and polled. The new breed of cattle were then interbred with the local black horned Celtic cattle of Scotland which produced the ancestor of the black Aberdeen Angus of today.

A breeder of Red Angus cattle, Eric L.C. Pentecost, explains a possible reason for the introduction of the red colouration into the Aberdeen Angus breed. In the eighteenth century, the black Scottish cattle were too light to provide sufficiently large draught oxen, so larger English longhorns, predominantly red in colour, were brought in and crossed with the black native polled breed. The resultant offspring were all black polled animals, since black is a dominant colour, and red a recessive one. However, all carried the red gene. Subsequent interbreeding produced an average of one red calf in four, in accordance with Mendel's law of heredity.    more...