Lifespan of Cattle and Horses 61 



The rise in average age of herd-book cows of this breed there- 

 fore amounts to 2 years, 1 month, and cattle not registered in 

 herd-books showed the same tendency. 



Finally, let us mention the values for grey-brown highland 

 cattle (Table IV). 



Table IV 

 Average age of grey-brown highland cattle (herd-book) 



Date 



1900 

 1925 

 1949 



Like the lowland cattle they show an increase in age, amount- 

 ing in this case to 1 year, 5 months. This generally observed 

 tendency to an increase in age is due to improved feeding, to 

 improved methods of keeping and breeding and to the struggle 

 against epidemics and disease. 



Besides the age of living cattle, the age of cattle at death is 

 of great interest, for this gives a clear idea of the average 

 longest lifespan of the animals. In this case it does not matter 

 w^hether the animals were killed because of insufficient pro- 

 ductivity or whether they died as a result of epidemics, disease 

 or accident. Bottcher (1952) gives the figures shown in Table 

 V. 



Table V 



Average age at death of black-pied cattle of the Middle- 

 Weser breed (Bottcher, 1952) 



Table VI gives results found by Konig (1951) for another 

 breed. 



