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 With a body size of 80 – 90 cm and a weight of about 230 kg of an adult cow respectively 90 – 105 cm and about 300 kg in sires the Dahomey miniature cattle is the smallest natural cattle of the world. But their proportions comply to our european cattle breeds and have no hump, which occur often in other non-european cattle breeds.
In contrast to other small cattle breeds (e.g. Dexter) which were created by selective breeding the Dahomey reflect a genuine dwarf form from Africa. At the beginning of the last century the first Dahomey cattle were exported from Benin (in former times The Kingdom of Dahomey) to the zoo of Antwerp, from where the further spreading within Europe happened. The breed is mostly kept for enthusiastic reason. The economic meaning is low. The lactating activity is quite sufficient for feeding the calves. As a beef supplier it is too small with a comparable low body mass gain to other breeds and therefore no competitor. In landscape conservation however the small size is of advantage, because the relative light cattle only damage pasture little and accept also low-grade feedlot.
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