Local Farmer Seeks to Preserve America’s Heritage Livestock Breeds

Virginia Free Citizen ^ | June 3, 2014 | Kate Miller

[RightSideNews]

Photos and Video: Karen Doyle is the owner of Georgiatown Farm, a 10-acre livestock farm in White Stone, Va. Although most commercial agricultural operations make mass production a top priority, Doyle takes a different approach by raising heritage livestock breeds that are now threatened with extinction in the U.S.

Doyle, a member ofThe Livestock Conservancy, raises numerous heritage breeds, including Red Wattle hogs, Bourbon Red turkeys and Clun Forest sheep.

Fight Against Factory Farming

Doyle said she hopes to conserve endangered livestock breeds and help diversify the food market, which she said is negatively influenced by factory farming.

“Factory farming has destroyed the diversity of animals. They (factory farms) have genetically engineered the animals to grow bigger, longer and faster,” she said.“We’re interested in saving pandas and white tigers and all kinds of exotic creatures, but our American livestock, so much of it has become extinct because of factory farming.”

For more information on factory farming, or intensive pig farming, please check out these photos of typical gestation crates and pig confinement.

[cripplecreek]

I've got a longhorn breeder near me.

My Grandmother just pawn in great game of life.

[RightSideNews]

Dag, what a ride! How she get up there?

[RightSideNews]

duh, I see the step ladder now

[Portcall24]

Not enough meat on their hindquarters so ranchers in the late 1800’s started to cross them with Herefords and other breeds from England. Problem is a Longhorn can calve without assistance but has a much harder time when mixed. Best book ever written about Longhorns was by J. Frank Dobie and the book was...wait for it, “Longhorn”. Biggest set of horns ever recorded was 15’ and inches. Can’t recall exact inches. The animal couldn’t walk without dragging each horn from side to side.

[Cold Heart]

Saw a documentry last night about the Nazis trying to recreate the morox (sp). They got an animal that physically looked the part.

[Constitution Day]

I have heard of that before and would have found that documentary interesting.

The aurochs (bos primigenius) was the wild ancestor of today's cattle and as I recall became extinct in the 1600s.

It was one of the animals depicted in the famous cave paintings of Lascaux in France. I wonder how that beef was?

[Cold Heart]

It was a very interesting documentary, I think it was on the military channel. The theory used was to take all the characteristics of the aurochs (Thnx for the sp) found in modern cattle located throughout europe and breed them to regain the origin. They accomplished a look alike but not the original. With today's genetics maybe they could get closer to the actual animal.