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Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2009 3:40 pm
by natmadaboutdexters
I read with interest the article by Andrew Sheppy in 1986 in this months Bulletin regarding Dexter bloodlines and AI bulls. It stated how the bulls represented six basic bloodlines which have produced a majority of the cows. Are these facts still true today or are there a greater number of bloodlines now? I only ask with interest as two of our heifers have Templeton Michaelmas Squeak in their pedigrees and he is one of the bulls mentioned.
Natasha
Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2009 6:54 pm
by Duncan MacIntyre
Despite the conclusions reached in such papers, the recently completed Genetics Project showed that the Dexter breed had a remarkably broad genetic base without great evidence of introduced genetics.
This is good news, as it had been concluded that the small size of the breed (numbers, not stature) in the 1970's combined with the use of grading up through the Appendix registers, meant that today's Dexter was (a) inbred and (b) impure. This is not so.
Duncan