Kerry
History & heritage
One living story. Knowledge kept together.
Kerry cow in a historical JIRCAS livestock photograph. · JIRCAS Library from Tsukuba, Japan · CC BY 2.0 · License terms
Follow the story behind the name.
Kerry cattle are an Irish dairy population named for County Kerry. Their decline accompanied the arrival of competing breeds and crossbreeding during the nineteenth century, making surviving purebred families important to preservation.
Kerry takes its name from County Kerry in Ireland. Its history belongs to the island's longstanding small dairy-cattle tradition and overlaps with, but differs from, Dexter development.
Fine-boned black cattle with pale, black-tipped upswept horns are characteristic. Cows are relatively small and lean. Dairy usefulness and adaptation to limited resources help explain their place in traditional Irish farming.
Sources for general species learning
Sources behind the breed’s story.
The original history, identity and conservation teaching above draws on these cited accounts. Official links open the full material for further study.
Keep learning from official information.
These research portals help locate further material. A search link is a route for exploration; it is separate from the sources used for the article above. Domestic breed information, wild-species assessment, historical books and new research need their own context.
- FAO DAD-IS · Domestic breed information
- IUCN Red List · Species assessments
- Biodiversity Heritage Library · Historical literature search
- USDA National Agricultural Library · Research search
- Google Scholar · Scholarly literature search
- Open Library · Book catalogue search
- HathiTrust · Digitized catalogue search