Info~All this makes for something approaching a profoundly, unexpectedly, primeval experience. The Chillingham breed is as near as we get to a proto-cattle, the bovine equivalent of Dawn Man. The herd has existed here for at least 800 years. Their true origins remain unfathomable, but a mixture of research and conjecture intriguingly links them to ancestors of the Mesopotamian ox, which arrived in Neolithic times, http://www.countryfile.com/countryside/chillingham-cattle-rarer-giant-pandahttp://www.countryfile.com/countryside/chillingham-cattle-rarer-giant-pandaand the fabled Bronze Age cattle, the ancient auroch. Whatever their provenance, they are the only living link with cattle’s prehistoric ancestors.
The Chillinghams provide an insight into how cattle roamed our wild forests centuries before domestication. They wander around the park, with four dominant bulls holding sway when the main herd enters their turf. The cattle are sociable, palpably alert and twitchy as cats, utterly unlike their languorous modern-day farming cousins. Untreated by vets, their only constraint is a distant boundary fence that encloses their 365-acre land. And in winter their natural diet is supplemented with hay.
They look ferocious, the bull’s horns ripe for Viking drinking vessels, while the females’ curve more gracefully inwards. Richard will rarely allow you closer than 40 yards, but even so you can’t help noticing that these cattle cause each other a lot of damage. Some have lost eyes, others are prominently scarred and the bulls were sweeping their heads in puddles of manure in preparation to fight for breeding rights. “Nothing can hurt them, but they may see an anxious deer and that’s enough for them to stampede,” said Richard. “They can run at up to 30mph. It’s quite a sight, as long as they’re moving away from you.”