Dutch Belted

The Dutch Belted is a dairy cow, black with a white band around the middle. In the Netherlands it is the Lakenvelder, from laken, a sheet. Dutch nobility bred belted versions of several species for the look, and the cattle are the ones that lasted. The breed has been standardized there since the 1600s.

What kept it was the milk. It was selected to turn good pasture into 12,000 to 15,000 pounds of rich milk a lactation on very little grain, which makes it a grazier's dairy cow rather than a confinement one.

The first US import came in 1838 through the American consul in Holland. P.T. Barnum brought some over in 1840 for his circus, billed as rare and aristocratic, then found they outmilked anything he had and moved them to his farm. The Dutch Belted Cattle Association of America formed in 1886.

If you are buying for the belt, look past it. A wide, even belt is the show standard and it says nothing about how a cow milks.