The Highland Coo: From Drove Road to National Icon

Each major claim carries one of three labels. established means supported by primary records, official bodies or several independent reliable sources. shared means the core fact is sound but sources disagree on details, dates or interpretation. traditional means widely repeated but not traceable to a primary or independent source.

Much information about the breed comes from breed societies, which promote it. Their figures on pedigrees are reliable, but some claims, such as the healthiness of the beef or the breed being among the oldest in the world, are promotional and are labelled here.

Built for the Highlands

established The Highland is a hardy, slow-maturing breed developed to live outdoors through wet, windy winters on poor grazing that would starve more productive cattle. Its long outer coat is oily and sheds rain; beneath it is a soft, downy undercoat. The heavy forelock, or "dossan", protects the eyes from weather and insects. Both bulls and cows carry long, wide, upswept horns. Bulls average about 650 kilograms and cows about 450, small by modern beef standards, and the breed is notably long-lived, often reaching 20 years. The society notes cows breeding past 18 and bearing fifteen calves.

established There were once two recognised types. The kyloe of the islands was small and often black; the name comes from the practice of swimming cattle across the kyles, the narrow straits between islands and mainland, on their way to market. Mainland cattle were larger and more often red, brown or dun. The two were merged as a single breed when the herd book was established.

established Red is now the classic colour, accounting for about 60 per cent of the breed, with yellow about 22 per cent and the rest black, dun, brindle, silver or white. The society says black was the original colour; the popularity of red is largely a matter of nineteenth- and twentieth-century fashion.

The droving trade

established For centuries cattle were the main currency of the Highlands, paid as rent, given as dowries and stolen in raids. After the Union of 1707 opened English markets, droving became a major industry. Drovers gathered cattle from the glens and islands and walked them along drove roads to the great autumn markets, the trysts, first at Crieff and later at Falkirk, where English dealers bought them to be fattened on lowland pasture. In 1723 more than 30,000 Scottish cattle were sold into England.

established The kyloes earned their name on these journeys, swimming the straits between Skye and the mainland or between islands. The trade declined in the nineteenth century as railways and steamships made the long walk unnecessary.

The herd book and the "oldest breed" claim

established The Highland Cattle Society was founded in 1884, and the first volume of the herd book appeared in 1885. It records every pedigree since.

shared The society describes the Highland as "one of the oldest registered cattle breeds in the world". The breed itself is old and has changed relatively little, but its herd book is not the oldest: the Shorthorn herd book, begun by George Coates in 1822, predates it by more than sixty years. "One of the oldest native breeds" is fair; "the oldest registered breed" is not.

Balmoral and the world

established In 1954 Queen Elizabeth II decided to keep a fold of Highland cattle at Balmoral, and the royal fold is still there. Exports began in the late nineteenth century to Canada, the United States, Argentina, Australia and the Falkland Islands, and later to much of Europe. The breed is now popular in Scandinavia: Finland's club reported about 13,000 Highland cattle in 2016. Worldwide numbers were just over 40,000 in 2022, with the largest herds in France and Finland.

established At home the picture is less comfortable. UK registered breeding cows numbered about 6,000 in 2012 but 3,161 in 2021, and the UN's livestock database lists the UK population as at risk. Demand for the lean, slow-grown beef has fallen, and many breeders cross Highland cows with Shorthorn or Limousin bulls.

Why a coo is a tradition

shared The Highland cow belongs on a Traditions card not as livestock but as a symbol. Since the nineteenth century, painters such as Landseer and his imitators made shaggy cattle in misty glens a standard image of Scotland, and the tourist trade has done the rest. The breed society also claims Highland beef is lower in fat and cholesterol and higher in protein and iron than other beef; that is a promotional claim without a cited source here.

Gaelic on the drove roads

established The droving trade was conducted largely in Gaelic. The historical geographer Charles Withers, in Gaelic in Scotland 1698–1981 (1984), cites the traveller John Macky, who noted in 1723 that the drovers at Crieff all spoke Gaelic among themselves, and records that a range of Gaelic accents could be heard at Falkirk, which had replaced Crieff as the chief cattle market by the 1770s. Cattle sales paid the rent in many Highland parishes: Applecross had some 3,000 head in 1794, and their sale was the chief support of its people. Withers argues that this regular trade with English-speaking dealers was one of the ways English first entered Highland life, as a language of buying and selling.

• A group of Highland cattle is a "fold", after the stone shelters they wintered in.
• "Kyloe" comes from cattle swimming across the kyles between islands.
• Black, not red, is thought to be the breed's original colour.
• The Queen kept a Highland fold at Balmoral from 1954.
• Finland has one of the world's largest Highland populations.
• The fringe over a Highland's eyes is called a "dossan".

• Myth: the Highland is the oldest registered cattle breed in the world. The breed society calls it "one of the oldest", and it is an old native breed. But its herd book began in 1885, and the Shorthorn herd book began in 1822.
• Myth: Highland cattle are always red. Red is the classic colour at about 60 per cent of the breed, but they also come in yellow, black, dun, brindle, silver and white. The society says black was the original colour.
• Disputed: the health claims for Highland beef. The breed society says it is lower in fat and cholesterol and higher in protein and iron than other beef. That is a promotional claim without a cited source.
• Myth: Highland cattle are endangered worldwide. The UK breeding population is listed as at risk, with 3,161 registered breeding cows in 2021, but world numbers exceed 40,000.