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Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 9:04 pm
by Broomcroft
I've bought an Angus bull for the "commercial" side of my farm. Commercial meaning it doesn't cost me quite as much as the rest! Anyhow, today I let 20 dexter cows plus their calves in with him for the first time. Baptism by fire! It was hilarious. He stood calmly in the middle of the barn and they just stormed in, and ran around him going totally bonkers, jumping in the air, skidding all over the place. His head was just going back and forth wondering what on earth he had let himself in for. Then at one point, he decided he would have a go as well, so he did a couple of leaps in the air, then stood still again, his head going back and forth, back and forth :D :D :D. I wished I'd had a video camera with me.
Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 10:17 pm
by mike skelton
do you cross the dexters with the Angus then clive? Have you sold joseph yet?
mike
Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 10:37 pm
by domsmith
We`ve had something funny happen to today.
a blonde dun heifer who has been brought into the barn to calf has adopted a pig!!
The pig is an escaped finisher who evades capture to be re penned.
she anxiously paces around when the pig is not in view and then when it come over to her she licks it endlessly. it lies there like a whale being tended to by its doting mum.
at first we thought she was attacking it but then realised she was being a mother and had bonded with the pig.
i have a photo and will try to download it
dom
Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 11:29 pm
by Broomcroft
Yes Mike, Joseph has been sold thanks to dextercattleforsale. Had loads of enquiries. The Angus is being put to my bigger Dexters, and I also have a young Dexter bull that will be put to my smaller Dexters and ones that are from the best lines, possibly heifers as well. I'm going to produce (hopefully!) smaller, beefier pure Dexters because I feel the beef is better or at least has a more powerful flavour. All the smaller Dexters I am targeting for this have quite a lot of Woodmagic in them. We had the pleasure of visiting Beryl and the Woodmagic herd a few weeks ago and I was really impressed with their back ends and general stature. All or most Dexter beef is top-notch, but I feel sure that the very best comes from small beefy animal and I will be charging a premium for it.
My Angus X Dexter will be Angus and I am sure it will be excellent but not awesome. Mind you, watching them tonight I'm not sure the Angus bull is going to be able to catch the cows :D, so it could all be a waste of time!
That's a funny story about the pig dom.
Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 12:07 am
by wagra dexters
For those new folk who may not know, a problem can arise when cows adopt something else pre-calving.
They may then not bother to tend their own calf when it arrives. They may not even get on with the job of pushing if they are bonded to a substitute, as happened with a calving heifer here once.
We pulled the calf and left the cow locked away with it while she bellowed for her adoptee. It was still a few hours before she transferred her allegiance to her new baby.
Margaret.
Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 11:56 am
by Louisa Gidney
Another funny story. Went into the barn at the weekend to find my little grey mule appeared to have a Dexter calf! Calf happily curled up in the hay being guarded by mule. Mule has done her share of babysitting calves in the past, including the new mum next door who obviously thought it was time for a respite break.
Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 12:31 pm
by Broomcroft
Here's Beryl's Woodmagic (and wooden) milking parlour:
Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 12:47 pm
by Saffy
Surely that is the cubicles Clive- very well proportioned for the Dexters and nice and comfy in wood - Beryl used a rotary parlour I believe back when she was milking.
I am sure when she logs in she will put us right!
Stephanie
Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 2:57 pm
by Broomcroft
oooops...milking not my dept 
Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 7:41 pm
by davidw
Having now kept Dexters for a whole 9 months, I continue to be amazed at their intelligence and sense of fun.
Last year, my cows decided to go for self-feed hay and burrowed into the back of the barn hoping I wouldn't notice. I took some plywood sheets to build a barricade and left them on a handcart at the front of the barn whilst I went around the back to plan how I was going to fix them. When I returned, I found 4 calves taking it in turn to slide down the sloping ply-boards, then running around to have another go.
A couple of days ago, one calf came over to me whilst I was adding more bedding, nudged me to make sure she had my attention, then walked over to the trough and deliberately showed me that the bedding was too deep for her to reach the trough. She couldn't have put it more plainly in words.
Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 5:21 pm
by Woodmagic
Thank you for all the nice compliments, but they should go to the Dexter. I could only bring out what is there. My aim has always been to work back to the animal that evolved in the wild to make the most of scarce resources, if it then receives the minimum of pampering by man it will obviously produce well. I have been very lucky in that I have been given a long time to capture it!
Stephanie is correct, the rotary milking parlour is still there and was used stationary to milk my house cow till recently. The cubicles gave me a headache when I installed the first; nobody knew what size you needed for Dexters, and when I put them in I still bred short leg, so there were enormous difference in sizes, which I had to allow for. They certainly pay for themselves in these days of expensive straw and combined with self-feed silage they reduce labour requirements to the minimum.
Beryl (Woodmagic)
Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 7:55 pm
by Broomcroft
Talking about the difference in taste between a chunky smaller Dexter and a rangier one. It all fits in with science as well. If you read the studies done by various organisations, like Syndey University as an example, then I think I'm correct in saying that the volume of actual muscle fibre in a cattle carcass is the least variable. The main difference between a chunky carcass and one that isn't as chunky is intramuscular fat, not marbling (which is intermuscular), intramuscular fat is invisible and within the muscle fibres or attached to them, whatever! The fat is where the flavour is, so that all makes sense.
You can definitely get fantastic beef from larger Dexters because we and others do it. They need a lot more finishing and as far as I can tell from my own production, they don't have nearly as much of that very distinctive flavour and smell.
I do not believe that the flavour is in the breed itself, the flavour is a direct result of the relatively small size (and the marbling). Put it another way, if a Dexter gets bigger so that it is nearing other larger breeds, it will also taste similar, watered-down.
Edited By Broomcroft on 1237489010
Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 2:11 pm
by carole
Hi, I watched one of our heifers yesterday put the whole of nose in a water trough and blow bubbles, she obviously thought this was fun because she did it twice more! I tell my children off for doing things like this :D
Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 5:22 pm
by Woodmagic
I agree with Clive on the size issue, and it ties in with the prevalence these days of continentals that are bigger than the original British breeds. Today’s supermarket beef is usually supplied by the Continental crosses or pure, and is certainly inferior to years ago when it was provided by the old British breeds which were smaller than today’s cattle.
Beryl (Woodmagic)
