year and where to shelter. The male lambs are used for meat and most of the females are retained on the hill as flock replacements. Aged ewes are moved to lower elevations and crossed with lowland rams to produce Welsh mule ewes, which are then used for breeding. In 2013, there were 1,094,644 cattle in Wales including 223,208 dairy cows and 174,100 beef cows, two years old or over. The total number of sheep and lambs was 9,460,692, of which 4,003,581 were ewes or replacement females retained for breeding. Besides this, there were 24,890 pigs, 10,475 goats and 50,381 horses. The poultry flock totalled 8,736,547 birds, including 6,079,114 table birds (broilers). Welsh Black cattle are the traditional breed of Wales. These hardy cows with horns and shaggy coats are able to thrive on poor quality pasture and moorland and can be used to provide both milk and beef. Large numbers were raised in Wales and herded on foot to be fattened in England for selling in English markets. On Welsh farms they were used to pull ploughs and sometimes wagons during the nineteenth century, and were the prized possessions by which a man's wealth could be estimated. Nowadays, many have been crossed with Charolais, Limousin or Hereford bulls but pure bred herds can still be found in many parts of the uplands. The Welsh Mountain sheep is a hardy breed that can scrape a living from the mountainous habitats where they spend the whole year. Being adept at exploiting their environment, they have local knowledge of their mountains and are left to their own devices, being gathered once or twice a year. Originally often horned, and various shades of brown or black, they were often of poor conformation and bedraggled appearance. More recently, scientific breeding has improved them and they have been exported to many parts of the world. They form part of the ancestry of various local breeds of sheep in Wales, the Llanwenog, the Lleyn sheep, the Kerry Hill, the badger-faced, the Welsh mule and the Beulah speckle-faced. In rural areas, sheep are still an important part of life with local livestock shows and sheep dog trials taking place annually. Pigs are not one of the main forms of livestock on Welsh farms though there are some specialised units. They used to be kept in small numbers on farms and by rural and urban cottagers. In the twentieth