Dutch Belted

History

The first Lakenvelder stock arrived in the United States in 1838, brought by D.H. Haight to Goshen, New York. Further imports reached Orange County and Pennsylvania in 1848, and a single cow was brought to New Jersey in 1906. In the 1840s, P.T. Barnum exhibited some in his traveling circus. Sixteen of the cattle were shown at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. The Dutch Belted Cattle Association of America was formed in either 1886 or 1901 and was incorporated in New Jersey in 1909. By 1916 the breed had spread to about twenty-five states. Numbers never rose very high, and with the spread of the Holstein in the mid-twentieth century, the breed association became dormant in the 1970s. In the 1980s, the Department of Agriculture encouraged selling dairy cattle for beef, further pressuring the breed. From 1993, the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy worked on recovery and conducted a survey. Between 1981 and 1995, average annual registrations were 21 cows and 7 bulls; in 1995 total registered purebred stock was 34. By 2010 the population had increased to about 70 bulls and 700 breeding cows. The breed association resumed registrations in 2013. In 2016 the total population was reported to DAD-IS, and in 2021 the breed was listed as critical on the Livestock Conservancy watchlist.