Girolanda

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Girolando
Conservation status
Country of originBrazil
Distribution
  • Brazil
  • Ecuador
  • six other countries[3]
StandardAssociação Brasileira dos Criadores de Girolando (in Portuguese)
Usemilk
Traits
Weight
  • Male:
    average 800 kg[2]
Height
  • Female:
    average 146 cm[2]
  • Cattle
  • Hybrid Bos (primigenius) taurus/indicus

The Girolando is a Brazilian breed of dairy cattle. It is a taurindicine breed, resulting initially from cross-breeding bulls of the zebuine Indian Gir breed with cows of the European Holstein cows.[4] The coat varies from black to black-and-white. Approximately 80% of the milk production in Brazil is from Girolando or other Holstein-Gir cross-breeds.[5]: 188  The proportions of the Girolando were initially established at 3/8 Gir and 5/8 Holstein.[6]

History

In rural Brazil in the 1970s, the average milk yield of dairy cows was less than 1000 kg per lactation. Most dairy cattle were cross-breeds of European (taurus) and Asian (indicus) types, bred by natural reproduction – artificial insemination was little used; to maintain production, bulls of both types were required, placing a cost burden on farms. At a meeting in 1977 at Embrapa Gado de Leite – the dairy research station of the Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária in Coronel Pacheco, in Minas Gerais – the decision was taken to develop taurindicine hybrid bulls which might take the place of the bulls in use at that time.[6] A breed association was formed in Uberaba in 1978, the Associação dos Criadores de Gado de Leite do Triângulo Mineiro e Alto Paranaíba, usually abbreviated to Assoleite.[6][7] A programme of directed cross-breeding, Procruza, was launched in the same year by the Ministério da Agricultura, as the Brazilian agriculture ministry was then known.[6][8]

Characteristics

The proportion of the two constituent breeds of the hybrid was initially fixed at 3/8 Gir and 5/8 Holstein;[6] in the twenty-first century, the proportion of Holstein may vary from 1/4 to 7/8.[9]

References

  1. Barbara Rischkowsky, Dafydd Pilling (editors) (2007). List of breeds documented in the Global Databank for Animal Genetic Resources, annex to: The State of the World's Animal Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Rome: Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. ISBN 9789251057629. Archived 23 June 2020.
  2. Breed data sheet: Girolando / Brazil (Cattle). Domestic Animal Diversity Information System of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Accessed March 2026.
  3. Transboundary breed: Girolando. Domestic Animal Diversity Information System of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Accessed March 2026.
  4. H.M.S. Bicalho, C.G. Pimenta, I.K.P. Mendes, H.B. Pena, E.M. Queiroz, S.D.J. Pena (2006). Determination of ancestral proportions in synthetic bovine breeds using commonly employed microsatellite markers. Genetics and Molecular Research. 5 (3): 432–437. doi:10.4238/vol5.3gmr212. Archived 13 August 2017.
  5. Valerie Porter, Lawrence Alderson, Stephen J.G. Hall, D. Phillip Sponenberg (2016). Mason's World Encyclopedia of Livestock Breeds and Breeding (sixth edition). Wallingford: CABI. ISBN 9781780647944.
  6. [s.n.] ([s.d.]). Girolando: raça tropical desenvolvida no Brasil (in Portuguese). Circular Técnica 67. Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais: Embrapa Gado de Leite; Ministério da Agricultura, Pecuária e Abastecimento. Archived 23 June 2025.
  7. Sobre a Associação (in Portuguese). Vila São Cristóvão, Uberaba, Minas Gerais: Associação Brasileira dos Criadores de Girolando. Archived 12 December 2025.
  8. Sobre a Raça (in Portuguese). Vila São Cristóvão, Uberaba, Minas Gerais: Associação Brasileira dos Criadores de Girolando. Archived 16 January 2026.
  9. Nomenclatura Exterior, Tipo Ideal, Glossário e Padrão Racial (in Portuguese). Vila São Cristóvão, Uberaba, Minas Gerais: Associação Brasileira dos Criadores de Girolando. Archived 12 December 2025.