Stock status

The first investigation shows that there are more than 50 grey cattle left in Estonia. The first herd to be paid notice to was the Alavere herd in Harju county (North Estonia). This herd is so big that people easily pay notice to it as their pasture is close to the road. People passing the pasture stopped often and took a photo of the herd. Since summer 2005 I have methodically looked for grey cattle in Estonia besides my job as an environmental and agricultural eLearning teachers at Häme University of Applied Sciences. The subject native breeds and old plants is included into the course curriculum at Häme University of Applied Sciences. The searching was speeded up during summer 2006 and culminated in the finding of grey cattle at a farm in Väike-Maarja municipal, Lääne-Virumaa county. After this the newspapers and radio (Virumaa Teataja, Päevaleht, Kuku radio, Roheline värav, Järvamaa portaal) showed an interest into the matter which resulted in more announcements about still living grey cattle.

At present (20.5.2010) 60 grey cows are mapped. They are found at 20 farms and in six geographically different counties, 11 lines. The grey cattle is geographically spread all over Estonia. Nearly all cattle has during the last 20 years been paired with other bulls than grey. Grey seems to be dominant towards estonian black-white cows. Grey is partly dominant to estonian red cows. In the Estonian animal register the grey cattle are usually marked as “cross-breeds” or “milk cows”. In one case it was marked as limousine breed. There are few cases where grey cattle has been inseminated with Belgian blue.

Three herd owners keep the cattle for producing milk and deliver the milk to a dairy. All the rest keep grey cows for producing milk for own use. Two of the owners keep large herds of grey cattle (18 respective 13 grey cows), non of the milk from these large herds goes to the dairy due to lack of EU standards in the stables and in the milk room. As far as I know no research has been undertaken on the grey cattle in Estonia. This first investigation shows that there are more than 60 grey cattle left, my estimation is that there are less than 100 grey cattle left in Estonia.

With blue is where is found grey cattle still alive (2007). With red are where there have been grey cattle and people remembers them in memories.