Montbéliarde

The name Montbéliarde was first used by Joseph Graber in 1872, when exhibiting a group of cattle at the Langres agricultural competition.

[1] Before this the local stock from indigenous multipurpose breeds such as Fémeline and Tourache (later known as Comtoise) had been improved by Mennonite farmers from Switzerland, and named Franco-Swiss.

[citation needed] The animals are red pied with white heads and short horns, and of dairy type.

[2] The milk is particularly well suited to cheesemaking because of a high frequency of kappa casein BB variants,[3] giving higher yields of cheese.

France has nearly 400,000 recorded Montbéliarde dairy cows, with an average adult annual lactation of 7,486 litres (1,978 US gallons) at 3.9% butterfat and 3.45% protein.