Meat · Breed · Short entry
Meuse-Rhine-IJssel (MRIJ)
Maas-Rijn-IJsselvee
A red-and-white dual-purpose breed from the river country of the eastern and southern Netherlands, named after the Maas, Rijn and IJssel. Praised in the nineteenth century for milk with good meat, it was a common Dutch breed until the 1980s. It then gave way to the Holstein-Friesian. About 6,500 cows remain.
Cattle of the great rivers
The Dutch rare-breeds foundation (SZH) describes the MRIJ as descended from an old landrace of the fertile land along the great rivers in Gelderland, Noord-Brabant, Overijssel and Utrecht. Mid-nineteenth-century descriptions already praise its milk yield combined with meat. In the 1960s breeding turned towards milk and udder shape, raising yields to those of the black-and-white cattle. Its good meat yield kept it popular until the 1980s. From about 1980 Holstein-Friesian breeding spread in the Netherlands and the MRIJ lost ground.
The coat is red-and-white, often with a lot of white, and the red is a little lighter than that of the Brandrode rund. Cows weigh about 850 kg. SZH counts 6,511 cows, classes the breed as not at risk and notes a declining trend over the past 15 years.
How it connects
Breed
- related Groningen Blaarkop
