Braunvieh

Braunvieh is the original Swiss brown cattle breed, and it is the ancestor of the American Brown Swiss rather than a variant of it. The two split when American breeders selected the imported stock hard for milk and the Swiss kept a dual-purpose animal.

So a Braunvieh is built differently from a Brown Swiss: more muscle, more moderate frame, and kept for beef and milk together as it was in the Alps.

In North America they are used for maternal traits. The cows milk heavily for a beef breed, have sound udders and feet, and hold condition, and Braunvieh influence is a recognised way to add milk to a commercial cow herd.

The trade is the same one every high-milk beef cow presents. That milk has to come from somewhere, and on thin grass she will pull condition off her own back to produce it.