Saving heritage farm animals with an eye to the future
September 2024
by Les O’Dell, Contributing Writer
Whenever Elaine Shirley leads visitors on tours of the agricultural exhibits at the Carroll County Farm Museum in Westminster, Md., she always stops to showcase a plywood cut-out of a dairy cow.
It’s not that the museum lacks any living livestock. Shirley, the museum’s curator, is trying to make a point. The exhibit is painted with markings matching a Sheeted Somerset — a breed that went extinct in the 1930s. She says the reason for the board bovine often catches guests by surprise.
“I try to get the point across that this is a breed that no longer exists,” Shirley explains. “People know all about rare and endangered animals like jaguars, manatees and elephants, but they need to understand that the animals they depend on for food and fiber can also be in the same situation. We can lose them very quickly without anybody really paying attention.”
She says that losing these farm animals would be devastating. That’s why Shirley and other conservationists, including scientists, farmers, ranchers, shepherds, homesteaders, food enthusiasts and even artists, work to preserve a wide variety of heirloom breeds of agricultural livestock — animals once common across the U.S. but now considered endangered.
BACK TO BASICS
Known as heritage breeds, these traditional livestock breeds are a throwback to a time before industrial agriculture became a mainstream practice. According to The Livestock Conservancy, a North Carolina-based not-for-profit organization working to promote and protect these animals, these breeds were carefully selected and bred over time to develop traits that made them well-adapted to their local environments and thrived under farming practices and cultural conditions that are very different from those found in modern agriculture.
Because of unique characteristics (such as slower rates of intentional weight gain, for example), these breeds fell out of favor with commercial producers, pushing some of them to the brink of extinction. Today, The Livestock Conservancy lists more than 180 agricultural breeds across 11 species — ranging from rabbits, ducks and geese to cattle, horses and pigs — on its Conservation Priority List, an annual report, ranking the danger of disappearance of each breed, classified from the most serious,“Critical,” to less endangered levels of “Threatened,” “Watch” and “Recovering,” stepping down in severity with each classification. Based on these rankings, conservationists work to preserve these breeds.
“Our mission is to conserve the biodiversity of our farm animals,” explains Alison Martin, program director for The Livestock Conservancy. “We just want to make sure that they don’t disappear from the American landscape because the traits that they carry may have value for the unknowns in the future of farming.”
That’s why Shirley talks about the Sheeted Somerset wooden cow before showing museum visitors other living livestock.
DEVELOPING DIVERSITY
Across the country, more than 4,000 volunteer breeders and 150-plus breed associations work diligently to ensure these endangered breeds don’t disappear from our farms, ranches and backyards. Museums and living history venues are not the only places for endangered agricultural livestock. Many homesteaders and farmers choose heritage breeds, and they do so for a variety of reasons. Some, like Lynne Updegrove, of Lincoln, Va., just wanted a “less popular” breed of animal.
That’s why she chose Cotswold sheep (CPL status “Threatened”) for her farm. “I love their curls, I love their nature, and I love the fact that they are endangered,” she says. According to Martin, protecting biodiversity and genetic resources are other important reasons for protecting these breeds. “If we didn’t have this diversity, eventually, we would narrow our food system down to where it wasn’t sustainable. There would be no backup,” she says.
Preservation of legacy animals is also important to former veterinarians Dr. Will Hueston and Dr. Pam Hand who raise a herd of about 75 Barbados Blackbelly sheep on their farm near Free Union, Va. “Our real goal has been conservation,” Hueston says. “We wanted to do something; to leave our mark by helping conserve a breed. As the world changes, whether it is climate change or demographic changes or any of the other changes, we need all of the genetic resiliency we can possibly have.”
Hueston says the consequences of losing endangered agricultural breeds can be, at best, inconvenient and, at worst, devastating. “If we lose these breeds, it means we have far fewer options to handle the changes we see all around us … people like to have options and a range of choices. If you limit cows to Holsteins or horses to just Quarter Horses or sheep to just British breeds, you don’t have the variability, the choices or the options to change. That’s the real impact,” he says.
Hueston and Hand are so committed to heritage breed conservation that a condition of leasing property they own bordering their acreage is that any animals owned by tenants must be one of the 180-plus animals on the CPL. “Whether it is chickens or anything else, they have to be a heritage breed,” he says. “They have to join us in conserving these animals.”
COHESIVE CONSERVATION
Conservation of endangered breeds is a factor with many who raise these animals. “Conservation just resonates with me,” explains Laura Farrell of Charlottesville, Va. A member of Central Virginia Electric Cooperative, she currently raises San Clemente Island goats (listed as “Critical” on the CPL) and has also raised Dominique chickens. Farrell explains, “It seems to me if I’m going to be raising livestock, I should be doing something that’s helpful for the future of our food system. I want to ensure this genetic diversity.”
Another conservationist, Keith Ohlinger, raises Dexter cattle on his farm near Woodbine, Md. Dexters are known as a dual-purpose breed (raised both for beef and milk) and are among the smallest cattle in the world. He says they fit perfectly into a sustainable or regenerative type of agriculture.
“They do well in the environment and with rotational grazing,” Ohlinger, who serves on The Livestock Conservancy’s board of directors, explains. He adds that conservation appeals to him, especially given the “insurance policy” that comes with less common breeds. “If a disease or problem hit our main breeds in poultry, pork and beef, that would devastate our food industry,” he says.
Shirley emphasizes that raising some heritage breeds may not necessarily be as economically profitable as some commercial breeds. “But we can’t paint them all with the same brush,” she says. “There are many of these breeds that are self-sufficient and bring real benefits to farmers, ranchers and shepherds. They are better foragers, better mothers and just seem to be able to do a better job of being a sheep or a cow or a horse than the breeds we’ve so heavily selected for just one characteristic.”
Others also understand the unique qualities of heritage breeds. “I discovered that these animals are very adaptable, have good parenting skills and are more manageable,” explains Farrell. “I love them because they are not skittish. They’re even-tempered and they do great in the winter and even in the heat. They’re sturdy.” These breeds also bring historical and cultural value, explains Shirley, who for more than three decades cared for poultry and livestock at Colonial Williamsburg.
FRAMING THE FUTURE
Such living history is displayed at places such as George Washington’s Mount Vernon in northern Virginia. Washington was one of the leading agricultural innovators of his day. Among his many interests was improving livestock, including the development of the American Mammoth Jackstock donkey, a breed that could be used to produce strong work mules. Examples of critically endangered donkeys can still be seen at Mount Vernon.
Dr. Phillip Sponenberg taught future veterinarians as a professor in the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine for 42 years. He also has served as technical and scientific adviser to The Livestock Conservancy since 1978. He says there are several reasons for preserving these agricultural breeds. “One reason is the genetic insurance policy and, at first blush, that seems to be the most compelling reason. Second would be other scientific interests, things like models of human disease: basic biology. The third is the idea that these breeds are the final products of cultural endeavor. They’re actual living consequences of human culture.”
Heritage breed products are even sought out by artisans. Ohlinger applauds what officials at The Livestock Conservancy call “giving these animals a job” — efforts to expand markets for heritage livestock products. The group is working to develop a way of connecting consumers to endangered-breed food products and it has found success with “Shave ‘Em to Save ‘Em,” an effort to encourage fiber artists, weavers and spinners to discover and advocate uses for new wools from heritage breed sheep.
The programs seem to pay off. Since first establishing the Conservation Priority List 37 years ago, the organization has not lost a heritage breed to extinction. In fact, in the last dozen years, 12 breeds have graduated off the CPL, meaning animal populations are such that the breed no longer needs continual monitoring. In 2024, two breeds — Southdown sheep and Hereford pigs — graduated from the list and 15 breeds were reclassified within the CPL’s four tiers, most in a positive direction.
Farmers, educators and conservationists, like Shirley, Ohlinger, Martin and others continue to promote heritage breeds and their products.
For more information, visit livestockconservancy.org.