page_title: Hereford cattle
section_title: Health
hierarchical_section_title: Hereford cattle / Health
caption_attribution_description: Portrait of an unmarked Hereford cattle calf (Bos taurus). Taken in Victoria, Australia.
context_page_description: The Hereford is a British breed of beef cattle that originated in the county of Herefordshire, in the West Midlands of England. It has been exported to many countries, and there are more than five million purebred Hereford cattle in over fifty nations worldwide. The breed was first exported from the United Kingdom in 1817, initially to Kentucky, and spreading across the United States and Canada, through Mexico, to the great beef-raising countries of South America. Today, Hereford cattle dominate the world scene from Australasia to the Russian steppes. They can be found in Israel, Japan and throughout continental Europe and Scandinavia, in the temperate parts of Australia, Canada, the United States, Kazakhstan and Russia, in the centre and east of Argentina, in Uruguay, in Chile, and in New Zealand, where they make up the largest proportion of registered cattle. They are found all around Brazil and they are also found in some Southern African countries.
context_section_description: Eye cancer (ocular squamous cell carcinoma) occurs in Herefords in particular in countries with continued bright sunlight and those that prefer traits of low levels of red pigmentation around the eye. Studies have been made into eye cancer in Hereford cattle in the US and Canada, and lid and corneoscleral pigment were found to be heritable and likely to decrease the risk of cancer. Vaginal prolapse is considered a heritable problem in Hereford cattle, but it may also be influenced by nutrition. Another problem is exposed skin on the udder being of light pigmentation and therefore vulnerable to sun burn.
  Dwarfism is known to be prevalent in Hereford cattle and has been determined to be caused by an autosomal recessive gene. Due to equal occurrence in heifers and bulls, dwarfism is not considered a sex-linked characteristic.
caption: A Hereford calf in Victoria, Australia
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