The thread · 但馬牛Tajima cattle
A small herd that changed a breed
Tajima cattle come from northern Hyogo. They are small, slow-growing, and short on meat in the hindquarters. They also have an unusual gift for fine marbling, and their bulls spread that gift across Japan.
Most figures on this page come from Enoki's 但馬牛のいま (2008), whose data runs to roughly 2004–2006. Treat the numbers as history, not as current statistics.
What "Tajima" means
Today the name covers all Japanese Black cattle kept for breeding in Hyogo Prefecture. Hyogo practices closed breeding (閉鎖育種): it does not bring in outside blood, and it uses only Tajima-born bulls. In 2005 the herd numbered just under 15,000 head, or 2.3% of all Japanese Black. [Enoki 2008]
The name is used for breeding cattle and calves. Once the animals are fattened, their meat is sold under other names, such as Kobe or Matsusaka. Enoki suggests this is why Tajima itself is so little known. [Enoki 2008]
Strengths and weaknesses
Weaker
Small frame, slow growth, narrow rump and thin thighs, so less meat per animal. Enoki links the small size to selection for working small terraced rice fields. [Enoki 2008]
Stronger
Good fertility: many cows calve every year for more than ten years. Little fat forms under the skin, while fat inside the muscle develops well. [Enoki 2008]
Signature
小ザシkozashi, fine marbling. Other marbling-strong lines tend toward coarser flecks. Tajima beef carries many tiny specks of fat, which Enoki connects to its melt-on-the-tongue quality. [Enoki 2008]
蔓牛tsuru lineages
Before modern breeding science, farmers in western Japan fixed desirable traits by close and line breeding, producing lineages called tsuru ("vines"). A survey around 1935 found more than a hundred tsuru names still remembered in Tajima. Among the oldest is the Shūsuke tsuru, from about 1850. [Enoki 2008]
From the 1970s, artificial insemination and the market's shift toward meat quality concentrated breeding on a few sire lines. The national registry later grouped the Hyogo sires of that period into four lines: Yasumi, Kikunori, Shigekane and Kinosaki. [Enoki 2008]
Three bulls, three regions
Yasufuku (安福) was born in 1980 in Muraoka and bought by Gifu in 1981. In the mid-1980s his calves sold for about ¥50,000 more than calves of other bloodlines, and Gifu's calf prices rose to the top in Japan. Enoki calls him the key figure behind Hida beef's rise in the late 1980s. Heavy use of his sons later raised inbreeding in Gifu. [Enoki 2008]
Shigeshigenami (茂重波), born in 1972, served at Miyagi's livestock station until 1988. He sired more than 40,000 calves and kept Miyagi's calf prices among the highest in the country for years. [Enoki 2008]
Wajin (和人), born in 1961, was used in Esashi, Iwate, from 1963. A local poem quoted by Enoki credits him with ending the region's arguments over which bloodline to follow. He is described as the driving force behind Maesawa beef. [Enoki 2008]
Out of favour, then back
Once machines replaced draft cattle, small, slow Tajima bulls were, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, deliberately avoided across Japan. From the mid-1970s, cheap beef from dairy steers and imports pushed Japanese producers toward quality over quantity, and Tajima bulls came back into demand everywhere. [Enoki 2008]
The cost of a closed herd
A small, closed population bred to a few favoured lines becomes inbred. Enoki reports that the average inbreeding coefficient of Hyogo cows rose from about 10% (born 1980) to over 16% (1990) and over 20% (2000). He cites 14% as the level above which problems may appear. Hyogo responded with planned-mating software and efforts to rebuild separate lines. [Enoki 2008]
The economics are tight too. Small Tajima calves did not pay for ordinary fattening, so breeders depended on Kobe producers to buy them. Kobe in turn depended on Tajima. Enoki describes the two as able to survive only together. [Enoki 2008]
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