Limousin Cattle

A French breed of beef cattle originating in the former provinces of Limousin and La Marche in France, once used mainly as a draught animal but reared for beef in modern times, with a herd book established in 1886. Mechanization of agriculture in the twentieth century drove numbers down sharply, and by the 1960s, with more than 250,000 head remaining, the breed's future was uncertain enough that merging it with the other blonde draught breeds of southwestern France, the Blonde des Pyrenees, the Blonde de Quercy and the Garonnaise, into a new Blonde d'Aquitaine was proposed. Breeders instead formed their own association, turning to extensive management, performance recording and exports, and the Limousin is now the second most numerous beef breed in France after the Charolais and is raised in about eighty countries worldwide.