Lincoln Red

During the seventeenth century, draught cattle were brought from Holland to the eastern Midlands of England. These were large, coarse, powerful and rugged animals with large hooves and short horns, usually either red or red-and-white in colour. In his Cheape and good hvsbandry for the well-ordering of all beasts and fowles of 1631, Gervase Markham describes the cattle of Lincolnshire as pied, with more white than of other colours, and with little crooked horns. John Mortimer, writing in 1712, refers to these as the "Dutch-breed". In the latter part of the eighteenth century and the early years of the nineteenth, cattle-breeders in Lincolnshire bought medium-sized red Shorthorn (also called…

Lincoln Red cattle are a very dark red in colour that reduces the likelihood of sunburn and cancer. They do not have horns. They may be polled and are noted for their docility and an ability to thrive under all conditions.