When looking to build my herd, my focus goes to 2 strong breeds from the Swiss Alps, the Fleckvieh and the Braunvieh, transleted these would be the spotted cow and the brown cow.
The Schweizer Braunvieh traditionally is the cow of Eastern Switzerland, it is the ancestor of the modern breeds Brown Swiss, and Braunvieh (an American beef breed) But in Switzerland it is an all-purpose animal. Today it is found in its traditional form, but also in breeds that are being optimized for more milk production.
The Simmentaler Fleckvieh (more often just Fleckvieh) is traditionally the cow of Western Switzerland, except in the French part where Abondance is common (which is atually bred from the Fleckvieh)
The Fleckvieh has the second most broadly distributed bloodline on earth, the most common in the West, being the ancestor to many modern breeds. The simmentaler beef breed is taken from this stock.
The Braunvieh is a moderate size cow.
The Fleckvieh is enormous, bred to handle the most rugged alpine environments.
I hope to build a stock of Fleckvieh by crossing Swiss genetics into an American dairy herd consisting of various mixed-breed cows. After a few generations, I hope to have a few animals of strong Fleckvieh stock.
There is basically no established Fleckvieh in this country, only stock that has been bred for other purposes. So I pretty much have to build my own herd.
One advantage of these animals is that the unwanted calves can be raised for beef, and yield good quality meet.