Oreo cows!?

About this time last year my friend and co-worker, Marilyn, asked if I'd seen the "tuxedo cows" on the Harmony Road route to Stratford. Huh?! Well, no I hadn't and a few weeks later she and her daughter Jenny-Lynn were calling them the Oreo cows. And I still hadn't caught a glimpse. Being spring, Geoff and I were back and forth to Stratford quite a bit with Opening Week for the Festival but no sightings of tuxedo or Oreo cows.

Finally the first night of Opening Week this year we saw the famous cows (bulls, actually) and Marilyn wasn't exaggerating, they bear a startling resemblance to Oreo cookies. They also look like black bulls wearing tube tops..... They are either Dutch Belted Cows or Galloway Belted Cows. Both breeds have a black front end and black back end and then a wide white band around their middles. They look like an Oreo cookie from the side. The Galloway Belted cattle are from Ireland; they have long hair and are prized for lean beef. The Dutch Belted cows produce a great quantity of milk. Rather than “Oreo,” this species is more commonly referred to as “Belties”. The colours vary from black to red to dun with white.