Breeds
Which breeds the book can keep
The book is not tied to a single breed. The breed is taken from the reference list of the Russian state livestock register, blood share is computed against the improver breed, and the index profile is tuned to what the breeders’ association pays for. Below are all 55 dairy breeds in the register and the state of each one here.
dairy breeds in the state register
a book is being kept today
matched to an ICAR breed code
without an international code — native and rare breeds
Who keeps herdbooks in Russia
The state does. State herdbooks are kept by VNIIplem, an institute of the Ministry of Agriculture, and the summary figures by breed are published there as well. This sets the country apart from Europe, where the herdbook is kept by a breed society: a breeders’ association records the animals itself, issues the documents itself and answers for the quality of the records itself.
Breeders’ associations do exist here too: the Holstein Cattle Breeders’ Association is an association of farms, and its herdbook is open at the link in the table above. It is simply that the law does not provide for such a book as the principal one, and the association keeps it by its own decision.
Hence the state of the list. A breed may be under state recording and still have no book that anyone keeps as a working instrument: with validation, documents and evaluation. Our part is to make opening such a book a matter of a week rather than five years; whose book it will be is not for the platform to decide.
What “supported” means here
There is an association, there are animals, the book is open at its own address.
1 breed
The breed is stitched to both reference lists, the fields and the computations are ready. There is no data yet — a book is opened when an association or a farm comes.
18 breeds
The breed is known to the system: it can be assigned to an animal and it will go to the state register. No separate book has been prepared for it.
36 breeds
Why this is done
A breed cannot be preserved while there are no records of it
36 breeds out of 55 have no international code at all. Yaroslavl, Kholmogory, Istoben and Red Gorbatov are in the register but not in the Interbull list: they take no part in the world semen trade. They have no herdbook of their own either — and without one there is no seeing the numbers, the kinship or who was got from whom, and words about preserving the gene pool remain words.
Our part of the work is to make opening a book a matter of a week rather than five years: the reference lists are stitched together, the fields are ready, blood share and kinship are computed, exports to the state register work. Beyond that, farm data is needed and a breeders’ association that will take on keeping the book. The same holds outside Russia: in Kazakhstan books are kept by colour group rather than by breed, and in Armenia nine animals out of ten are the local Caucasian Brown, which has no book at all.
The list
Alphabetical order. The ICAR breed code is the three-letter Interbull code, the same one that goes out in exchange and forms part of the international animal number; a dash means the breed is not in the Interbull list.
| Breed | ICAR code | State | What is missing | Where to look |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alatau | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Allgäu | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Angeln | RDC | Ready to be opened | an association willing to keep the book | — |
| Aulie-Ata | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Ayrshire | RDC | Ready to be opened | an association willing to keep the book | — |
| Belarusian Red | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Bestuzhev | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| British Friesian | BRF | Ready to be opened | an association willing to keep the book | — |
| Brown Swiss | BSW | Ready to be opened | an association willing to keep the book | — |
| Bushuev | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Carpathian Brown | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Caucasian Brown | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Dagestan Mountain | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Danish Black Pied | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Danish Red | RDC | Ready to be opened | an association willing to keep the book | — |
| Dutch Friesian | DFR | Ready to be opened | an association willing to keep the book | — |
| East Friesian | DFR | Ready to be opened | an association willing to keep the book | — |
| Eastern Finncattle | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Estonian Black Pied | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Estonian Red | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| German Black Pied | HOL | Ready to be opened | an association willing to keep the book | — |
| German Red Pied | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Holstein | HOL | A book is being kept | — | the running book |
| Istoben | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Jersey | JER | Ready to be opened | an association willing to keep the book | — |
| Kholmogory | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Kostroma | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Kurgan | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Latvian Brown | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Lebedin | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Lithuanian Black Pied | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Lithuanian Red | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Montbéliarde | MON | Ready to be opened | an association willing to keep the book | — |
| Northern Polled | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Norwegian Red | RDC | Ready to be opened | an association willing to keep the book | — |
| Pinzgau | PIN | Ready to be opened | an association willing to keep the book | — |
| Polish Black and White | PZB | Ready to be opened | an association willing to keep the book | — |
| Polish Red | RDC | Ready to be opened | an association willing to keep the book | — |
| Red Gorbatov | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Red Steppe | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Red Tambov | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Russian Black Pied | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Russian Holstein | HOL | Ready to be opened | an association willing to keep the book | — |
| Russian Red Pied | RED | Ready to be opened | an association willing to keep the book | — |
| Sibiryachka | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Simmental | SIM | Ready to be opened | an association willing to keep the book | — |
| Suksun | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Swedish Black Pied | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Swedish Red | RDC | Ready to be opened | an association willing to keep the book | — |
| Sychevka | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Tagil | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Ukrainian Grey | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Ukrainian Red Dairy | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Ukrainian Whitehead | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
| Yaroslavl | — | In the reference list | no ICAR breed code | — |
Where the list comes from
The rows are an extract from the breed reference list of the Russian state livestock register (FGIAS PR): 55 dairy breeds, each with its own identifier — the one exports are accepted by.
The codes are the Interbull list of 80 rows, copied on 2026-09-03. Three-letter codes are assigned by the Interbull Centre; the list is part of the ICAR International Agreement of Recording Practices. The source itself states that the codes are meant for labelling semen straws in international trade and are NOT used to identify breeds in Interbull international genetic evaluations.
Source of the codes: interbull.org
Open a herdbook for your breed
Write to us: which breed, how many head, and what you keep records with today. The book opens at its own address, with validation, access rights and exports to the state register.