
Finching is a colour pattern of cattle occurring in many unrelated breeds. Cattle with finching are said to be finched or finch-backed.
[''Oxford English Dictionary'' Compact Edition 1971: Finch-backed (adjective); Finched (participle adjective)]
Finching consists of a white or pale stripe along the spine. It may join to a white head, as in
Hereford cattle, continue over the tail, as in
Gloucester
Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east of t ...
and
Pinzgau
The Bezirk Zell am See is an administrative district ('' Bezirk'') in the federal state of Salzburg, Austria, and congruent with the Pinzgau region ().
The area of the district is , with a population of 84,124 (May 15, 2001), and population den ...
cattle, or it may form part of another
colour-sided pattern, for example in
Randall Lineback
The Randall Lineback or Randall is an American breed of cattle. It originated in Bennington County, Vermont, and is critically endangered.
History
The Randall derives from traditional linebacked or color-sided cattle once widespread in Ne ...
,
English Longhorn
The Longhorn or British Longhorn is a British breed of beef cattle characterised by long curving horns. It originated in northern England, in the counties of Lancashire, Westmorland and Yorkshire, and later spread to the English Midlands and ...
,
Texas Longhorn
The Texas Longhorn is an American breed of beef cattle, characterized by its long horns, which can span more than from tip to tip. It derives from cattle brought from the Iberian Peninsula to the Americas by Spanish conquistadores from the ...
,
Speckle Park
The Speckle Park is a modern Canadian breed of beef cattle. It was developed in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan from 1959, by cross-breeding stock of the British Aberdeen Angus and Shorthorn breeds; the spotted or speckled pattern for wh ...
and
Irish Moiled
The Irish Moiled is a rare cattle breed from Ireland. It is a dual-purpose breed, reared for both beef and milk. It originated in County Leitrim, County Sligo, County Down, and County Donegal
County Donegal ( ; ga, Contae Dhún na nGall ...
cattle.
In some breeds, such as
Jersey
Jersey ( , ; nrf, Jèrri, label=Jèrriais ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey (french: Bailliage de Jersey, links=no; Jèrriais: ), is an island country and self-governing Crown Dependencies, Crown Dependency near the coast of north-west F ...
and
Heck Heck may refer to:
* HECK (band), a British rock band
* Heck (surname)
* Heck, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland
* Heck, North Yorkshire, England
* Heck cattle
* Heck horse
* Heck reaction, a chemical reaction that forms a substituted alkene
* ...
cattle, finching occurs mainly in bulls, forming a cream or white stripe along the spine of a black-brown animal – this is thought to have been the colour pattern of the bulls of the wild ancestor of domesticated cattle, the
Aurochs
The aurochs (''Bos primigenius'') ( or ) is an extinct cattle species, considered to be the wild ancestor of modern domestic cattle. With a shoulder height of up to in bulls and in cows, it was one of the largest herbivores in the Holocene ...
.
References
Cattle
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