Het Koeienhuis (The Cow House) is run by Klaas and Wendy Vlaar, the third generation that operates this beautiful farm. Much like the two previous generations we are focussed on the black-and-white Holstein breed. Next to the Holstein breed we we started focussing on breeding thoroughbred Wagyu beef cattle in 2001 and the first Wagyu calf was born in 2003. By now Het Koeienhuis (The Cow House) has more Wagyu than Holstein cows.
With passion, motivation and many ambitions we do not want to blend into the crowd. If you want to stand out in the agricultural sector, you have to do something different than the others. A friend informed us about an article in the Dutch news magazine Elsevier about a Wagyu farmer. The story behind the wagyu very much appealed to us. The fact that the animal is protected in Japan makes it more unique and challenging. Due to the protection of the Wagyu in Japan it took more than two years before we could get our hands on embryos. We were specifically looking for 100% purebred Wagyu and eventually bought embryos from Australia and New Zealand where several Wagyu bloodlines were available. Embryos are supplied with a passport and a full genealogical record. The embryos were inserted in a few Holstein surrogate mothers at the farm and in 2003 our first Wagyu calf was born in 2003. All our Wagyu cattle have a blood line that traces back to Japan.
