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Where all of it starts.
A catalogue of some of the first Ankole in South Africa. The register is updated as new information is received.
38 imported.
21 with a line on our register.
Thirty-eight cows were imported and registered as KA 960001 to KA 960038, and crossed with four imported bulls: BA1, BA2, BA3 and BA7.
Their calves — Kyasha, Sheba, Eve, Cumulus, Maximus, Dyambo, Merlot and the rest — are what we call the foundation generation, and they are the animals this herd is actually built on.
Every one of them was crossed with all four bulls, which is why no sire column appears against the register — the variable is the cow, not the bull.
Being imported is not the same as populating a herd. Seventeen of these numbers carry no direct, first-generation progeny recorded. Among the twenty-one that do, A17 and A26 carry the most — fifteen and fourteen respectively.
Hover any cell for the full list of animals recorded against that cow. A cell Fire Sky descends from opens the genetic map.
Four bulls, four letters.
These 2004 photographs are the oldest images in the Fire Sky archive. They are reproduced as they are held — low resolution, and worth more for what they record than how they look.
KBA 000001
KBA 000002
KBA 000003
No photograph of BA7 is held in the Fire Sky archive.
KBA 000007
Where the register starts.
The four imported bulls and the imported cows whose numbers Fire Sky's register follows. Their offspring are the foundation generation.
These are the top of every tree on this site. Nothing sits above them — the animals that produced them were never brought to South Africa, and their genetics arrived as embryos and semen rather than as cattle.
The foundation generation itself — Texas, Aura, Merlot, Cumulus, Maximus and the rest — is on the matriarchs page and the sires page.
Foundational Ankole of South Africa.
A catalogue of some of the first Ankole in South Africa. The list will constantly be updated as new information is received.
Below is every animal recorded against each foundation number. Where we hold a record, the registration links to it.