Piedmontese cattle

Piedmontese

A Piedmontese cow on Alpine pasture near Castelmagno
Other names	Piemontese
Country of origin	Italy: Piemonte region
Distribution	world-wide
Standard	ANABORAPI (Italy)
Use	Formerly triple-purpose, draught, meat and milk now raised primarily for meat
Traits
Weight	Male: 700–850 kg[1] Female: 520–550 kg[1]
Height	Male: 130–135 cm[1] Female: 131–132 cm[1]
Coat	white or wheaten with grey shading; black skin and switch
Horn status	horned
Cattle Bos primigenius

The Piedmontese (Italian: Piemontese or razza bovina Piemontese) is a breed of domestic cattle that originated in the region of Piedmont, in north-west Italy. The calves are born fawn coloured, and turn grey-white as they mature. Piedmontese cattle carry a unique gene mutation identified as an inactive myostatin allele that causes hypertrophic muscle growth, or double muscling. Purebred Piedmontese cattle are homozygous, meaning they have two identical alleles present for this unique gene. They have garnered attention from breeders of beef cattle in other parts of the world, including North and South America. A small group of select Piedmontese bulls and cows were imported into Canada in the late 1970s, and into the United States in the early 1980s, and were used as the foundation breeding stock to develop a new breed of beef cattle known as North American Piedmontese cattle.