The Devon is a traditional British

breed A breed is a specific group of breedable domestic animals having homogeneous appearance (phenotype), homogeneous behavior, and/or other characteristics that distinguish it from other organisms of the same species. In literature, there exist seve ...

beef cattle Beef cattle are cattle raised for meat production (as distinguished from dairy cattle, used for milk (production)). The meat of mature or almost mature cattle is mostly known as beef. In beef production there are three main stages: cow-calf opera ...

. It originated in, and is named for, the

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

in the

West Country The West Country is a loosely defined area within southwest England, usually taken to include the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Bristol, with some considering it to extend to all or parts of Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and ...

of England. It is a deep rich red in colour, and so may be known as the Devon Ruby, Ruby red or Red Ruby; it may also be called the North Devon to distinguish it from the

South Devon South Devon is the southern part of Devon, England. Because Devon has its major population centres on its two coasts, the county is divided informally into North Devon and South Devon.For exampleNorth DevonanSouth Devonnews sites. In a narrower s ...

History

The Devon is a traditional breed of the county of Devon in the West Country of England. A herdbook was started by John Tanner Davy in 1850. A breed society, the Devon Cattle Breeders' Society, was formed in 1884, and took over management of the herd-book. By the early twentieth century the Devon was widespread. A

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

in 1908 found a population of close to 500,000, outnumbered only by the

Shorthorn The Shorthorn breed of cattle originated in the North East of England in the late eighteenth century. The breed was developed as dual-purpose, suitable for both dairy and beef production; however, certain blood lines within the breed always em ...

– of which there were about ten times that number.

In the United States

In Australia

Devons were popular for use in

bullock team A bullock cart or ox cart (sometimes called a Carriage#Bullock carriage, bullock carriage when carrying people in particular) is a two-wheeled or four-wheeled vehicle pulled by oxen. It is a means of transportation used since ancient times in m ...

s for hauling cedar and other logs from the forests, which was pit sawn and then transported by bullock drawn wagons and timber junkers to towns and seaports for cabinet making or export. These cattle were among the earliest breeds in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and Devons were noted for their docility, early maturing, hardiness and strength which were important attributes to have in a team.ABC Rural
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Characteristics

References

* Clive Thornton, (1993). ''Red Rubies: A History of the Devon Breed of Cattle'', Manchester: Gabriel Communications. . * Philip Walling (2018)
''Till the Cows Come Home: The Story of Our Eternal Dependence''
Chapter 11 * Albert Beer, Sean Beer (1998). Red Rubies: Jewels in Exmoor's Crown. ''Exmoor Magazine'', Issue No 4, Autumn 1998, pages 16–18. * J. Sinclair (1893). ''History of the Devon Breed of Cattle'', London. * John Tanner Davy (1869). ''A Short History of the Rise and Progress of the Devon Breed of Cattle'', Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, Vol. 30, pp. 107–130. * Richard Trevor Wilson (2012)
The Rise, Fall and Restoration of a Native Breed of Domestic Cattle: The Devon Red Ruby of Southwest England
In: L. Marin and D. Kovač (editors) (2012). ''Native Species'', Nova Science Publishers, Inc., pages 57–83. {{British livestock, R. Cattle breeds originating in England Conservation Priority Breeds of the Livestock Conservancy

History

In the United States

In Australia

Characteristics

References

Further reading