Tommy, a 13-year-old Brown Swiss from Cheshire, in Massachusets, was recently crowned the world’s tallest living steer, measuring an impressive 1.87m(6ft 1in).

Tommy the steer has been living with the Balawender family on their farm in Cheshire since he was just one day old, after being bought for just about $10. It’s safe to say that he is worth a bit more than that today, but the Balawender see him more as a member of the family than an asset, so they are not considering selling him. Brown Swiss cattle generally have large bodies for dairy cows, but they are considered a medium-sized breed, which makes Tommy somewhat of a freak of nature. A typical Brown Swiss cow weighs between 1,300 to 1,400 pounds, while bulls can reach 2,000 pounds. Tommy weighs about 3,000 pounds, which makes him heavy even for his breed, and he has the frame to match the weight – 1.87 meters (6ft 1in).

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With a recorded history of at least 2,200 years, the Chianina is among the oldest known cattle breeds. But what it is most famous for is being by far the largest cattle breed on Earth.

Remember Nickers, the giant Australian steer that shocked the world a few years back? You should, photos of this bovine giant towering over normal-sized cattle were everywhere online late in 2018, causing many to wonder if it was some kind of bio-engineered mutant. The only ones that didn’t seem impressed were Italy’s Chianina breeders. They had been producing impressive specimens much larger than Nickers for many generations, so this was nothing special. At the time, they even put out a statement that read “ours is a giant breed, while the Australian steer is an anomaly”.

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