The following excerpt from the 2009 book “Beef Cattle Australia” provides what we feel is a nice summary of the breed (used with permission from the author):

“The Drakensberger, a smooth coated black, strikingly long, deep bodied, medium to large framed, early to medium maturity type of beef animal was born, bred and developed in South Africa for the whole of Africa. The origin of the Drakensberger can basically be ascribed to the indigenous cattle possessed by Khoi and Bantu tribes of the Western Cape. Jan van Riebeeck crossbred the indigenous black cattle in 1665 with eight imported Gröningen bulls (a black dairy type from Holland) which became known as “Vaderlanders” in early 1700.

The Drakensberger can be described as the world’s first synthetic cattle breed due to the intermingling of genes of widely different cattle breeds from which it originated. Prof. Lukas Maree described the Drakensberger as genetically flawless in a series of articles on beef breeds in South Africa. The Drakensberger is unrelated to other breeds in the world and is therefore perfect for crossbreeding resulting in a high percentage of hybrid vigour.

In 1947, the Drakensberger Cattle Breeder’s Society (DCBS) of South Africa was founded and the breed formally recognised. It is one of the only three indigenous cattle breeds to South Africa. The development, over a period of several centuries on African soil, has given the Drakensberger an additional edge over the other breed with regard to adaptability, hardiness and natural resistance to diseases.

In 2004, Louis Willemse, a South African cattle breeder imported the first Drakensberger embryos into Australia. 53 calves were born establishing the first Drakensberger herd in Australia. Today Drakensberger herds are run on properties near Armidale, NSW, and Texas Station, Queensland. The gene pool of the Drakensberger cattle in Australia have been growing with another 100 embryos imported from South Africa (Meulstroom Drakensberger bloodline) during 2008.

The breeding strategy in Australia is to combine the qualities of the South African Drakensberger cattle in a crossbreeding program with black Angus cattle and provide a hardy cow with good beef quality for the harder breeding country of Queensland and the Northern Territory. The Drakensberger is said to have the hardiness of Brahmans with the beef quality of Angus.”