Talk:Galloway cattle

Tibial hemimelia
I deleted the following paragraph from the article: The Galloway cattle breed is faced with the challenge of a genetic defect called tibial hemimelia (TH), a genetic disease caused by an abnormal recessive gene. TH was first identified in Shorthorn cattle in 1999. TH is characterized by severe and lethal deformities in newborn calves. Affected calves are born with twisted rear legs with fused joints, have large abdominal hernias and/or a skull deformity; they cannot stand to nurse and must be destroyed.

The actual reference refers to a small number of TH affected calves being born in the Scotland between 1965 and 1975. Because of the extensive pedigree records available in Galloways, it was relatively easy to remove this genetic defect from the population. That was 35 years ago, and it is certainly not accurate to say that tibial hemimelia is a challenge that the Galloway breed currently faces. Perhaps this information is useful for historical purposes, but it is a relatively minor point in the history of this breed, and given the current brevity of this article it seems silly to devote so much space to a relatively trivial point.

Millifolium (talk) 01:20, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Size of Galloways
I deleted the following sentence about the size of Galloways:

The steers can reach weights of about 800 kg (1760 lb) and a height of 1.28 m (50 in), while cows weigh an average of 550 kg (1210 lb) and a height of 1.20 m (47 in).

This sentence is misleading. Galloways, like many cattle breeds, are raised in many parts of the world, and have been bred for many different beef production systems. Because of this, and because of the age of the breed, there are many different sub-populations of Galloways, and there is a huge amount of variation in the size of the animals. The average weight of a Galloway cow in one herd may be 900 lb, while in another herd it might be 1600 lb. Different breeders started with different genetics, have different breeding programs, and subject their animals to different environmental conditions. To attempt to summarize this variation into a single number is highly misleading, and to the best of my knowledge it has never been done. Which is probably why there was no reference for this sentence. I have no doubt that these numbers are true for the Galloways that the author of this sentence is talking about, but this is not representative of the breed as a whole.

The size of Galloway cattle, and the variation in that size, is a very interesting and relevant piece of information that should be included in the article. However, this is also a complex topic, and unless anyone knows of any survey on the size of Galloway cattle, any reporting on Wikipedia constitutes unverified original research, and cannot be included. Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge no such survey has been done. But please, someone prove me wrong and post a reference, that would be great.

Millifolium (talk) 01:36, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Why are weights in this article given in pounds? Both the Belted Galloway & Highland articles give all weights in kg (as they should since these are UK breeds of cattle). The only major nation to not be at least 95% metric is the USA & they keep saying they are headed in that direction (since 1866 but so far only their military have made it).

1.144.96.37 (talk) 13:08, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

about the color - heredity transmission
there is a good picture about heredity transmission in the german wiki: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Farbschl%C3%A4gePigmentierungenGALLOWAYS.jpg --  07:12, 15 May 2014 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.245.147.81 (talk)

External links modified
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