Breed Characteristics:

• Docile temperament giving easy management
• Milky dams with excellent mothering qualities
• Longevity
• Fast growth and early maturity
• Excellent grass conversion ability
• Hardiness and adaptability
• Good modern conformation with length & width

Breed Description:

Colour & Coat: Strong, curly coat of light medium red colour. Any white under-body undesirable particularly in front of the navel. Hide loose and pliable.

Head: Broad and kindly in appearance, with broad and uniformly pink nose and muzzle, free from blue (blotches) and smut (black hairs around lips). Horns, if present, should be white or yellow and curve downwards. Ears set well forward and of a good size.

Shoulders: Not prominent, blending neatly with a deep body.

Body: Deep and full in girth. Ribs well sprung, even and extending well back along the spine. Deep in the flank giving a level underline and not an extended gut. Back straight with good width extending from behind the shoulders to the loin.
Hindquarters: Rumps long, wide and square on top. The rounds wide and deep to hocks. The tail should be level set and blend neatly into the rumps. It should be strong with a good brush.

Temperament: Docile.

Bull: Masculine characteristics with size and flesh to attain 1,200 to 1,500 kgs at maturity. Testicles of substantial and even size and suspended equally and not twisted.

Cow: Feminine appearance with good size and even flesh. Even shaped, well-attached udder with well-spaced, equal and moderately sized teats.

Legs & Feet: Legs showing strong bone, flat rather than round below the hock. The hind legs reasonably straight and parallel with hocks well apart; the fore legs not wide apart and all having good sound feet, pointing directly forwards. Even locomotion with parallel tracking.

THE BREED’S HISTORY

The Early Years: The South Devon of today originated in South West England, in an area of Devon known as the South Hams from where they spread right across the counties of Devon and Cornwall. Their predecessors were taken from the port of Plymouth to the North American colonies in considerable numbers, including a few on the Mayflower in 1620, and during the Napoleonic wars they supplied the needs of the Royal Navy. The main expansion of the Breed across the whole of the country did not happen until the 20th century.

The Breed in the 19th Century: The South Devon had established as a Breed by the year 1800. With a light red coat, they were powerfully built and supplied rich milk and good beef, finely grained and marbled, and were relied upon to pull ploughshares until well into the 19th century. During the middle years of that century careful selection of breeding stock improved the Breed considerably. The South Devon Herd Book Society was founded in 1891 when it was recognised by the Government as an official body, and the South Devons become one of the 14 breeds of cattle whose Herd Books date back to the second half of the 19th century.

The Breed in the 20th Century: During the early years of the 20th century the Breed was considered as triple purpose – for the production of beef, milk and butterfat. Many exports helped support the South Devon farmers’ income at this time, with cattle regularly being purchased for the overseas markets at Society sales.

By the 1960s the gradual progression towards a specialist beef breed began when a beef recording scheme started for South Devons, whose successor, BLUP, is applied today by Breedplan. In the early 1970s a beef boom in the UK saw an increase in demand for South Devon cattle in the regions outside Devon and Cornwall, some 5,000 head of cattle being taken each year for finishing to other parts of the country. This led to a demand for breeding stock as well. Exports also increased to a high, with 170 bulls being exported to Canada alone, followed by 90 to South Africa and 150 to the USA. They quickly showed themselves able to adapt to extremes of temperature.

THE BREED TODAY

The South Devon Bull: Known as “the Gentle Giant”, the South Devon’s docility enables it to be easily handled and managed.

With rapid growth and early maturity, a bull can begin to be used around 15-18 months of age on a relatively small group of females which will gradually increase over the first year. He can often work up to 11 or 12 years of age.

Those not selected for future breeding stock can either be steered or kept entire for bull beef, depending on local market requirements.

In the non-pedigree herd the South Devon bull has two main uses – as a crossing sire or as a terminal sire.

As a crossing sire the South Devon bull will allow the production of replacement breeding females on-farm. The breed attributes of good beef conformation and good milking and mothering abilities mean the South Devon will assist in the improvement in quality of a suckler herd’s base stock, whilst providing good quality beef animals. The South Devon can also be used in breeding schemes where two or three sire breeds are used to increase hybrid vigour at each generation.

As a terminal sire the South Devon improves the quality of the meat, killing out percentages and carcase classification, improving marbling, tenderness and taste, and can decrease the time required for finishing. He also passes on his docility to the next generation.

The South Devon Female: The South Devon female is early maturing and may be calved at 2 years of age, although calving at 2½ - 3 is still quite common. Her early maturity is of major importance to those interested in high output systems and rapid genetic improvement. Calving is not usually a problem, but does depend on the usual factors: the size and condition of the dam and the choice of bull. As with the other large beef breeds in the UK care should be taken in the choice of bull for heifers.

The South Devon cow’s average gestation length is 286 days and she will calve every year for as long as 15 years. As a breed with strong origins in the dairy industry, the dam is very milky, and her calf grows on well and suckles easily. When a cow has the misfortune to lose a calf her strong mothering instincts usually make fostering a fairly easy alternative. Most births are single calves but twins do occur in approximately 10% of calvings.

With a breed of such longevity, only a small proportion of the annual crop of heifers are required for replacement breeding stock in the herd, and those that are not sold for breeding stock outside the herd will go for beef.

SOUTH DEVONS – THE NATIVE BREED FOR TODAY’S CHALLENGES