Milking Dexters

[LarryMag]

Hello to one and all.
I have been following this site for some time and it has so most helpfull and intresting. This my first post, if my questions sound daft or have been answered else where please excuse. Although having earlier this year spoken at length to a very nice chap in West Cork on the subject (he had had a herd of some 60 Dexters himself) it seems the idea may not be so daft. ???


My partner and I are planning to start a small dairy herd(Madness I hear you all say)early next spring.
What we would like to hear is peoples opinions on wether the Dexter is suitable for such a venture, given that on other posts i have seen, concerns are expressed that the milk traits have been (or nearly have) bred out and it may be difficult to obtain mikly cows. Does anyone know of an established milking heard from which we could get high quality starter stock?

Some backgound - our land is 18 acres (more is available) of mediorce pasture, north facing low land (but with good drainage). We are hoping to start our herd with 2 (Cows or Hefiers, preferably in calf or at foot) and build form there. The ultimate plan is to use the milk to make cheese/yogourt for onward sale at specific markets. We would aim to market na brand strongly on fact that is Dexter. We would be organic.

I have some of "Pudsers" post on milking.

All comments/advice/direction/experiences good bad and indifferent are most welcome and we thank you all in advance.

Larry

[Duncan MacIntyre]

The Dexter is certainly suitable for milking, perhaps the worst hurdle to get over will be the regulations surrounding such a business nowadays.
I first acquired a Dexter so that we would have milk for the household, and for many years milked one or two at a time. We had yields up to 4 gallons a day from some cows. The very first full lactation of Harron Erica was not recorded, but she provided milk for our household of four, for her pedigree calf, and we bought in and bucket fed seven friesian crosses in succession. The bought in calves made £500 profit when sold at 6 to 8 weeks in Paisley market. We did that for several years and that is why I kept two milking, but sadly the price of calves changed and we could make very little on the first few months so stopped. Over the years we milked Harron Erica, Burnside Holly, Cuerden Candy, Knotting Tredaru Rock, Burnside Periwinkle, Burnside Rosemary, and Burnside Tansy. Burnside Holly was recorded and records can be seen in the Dexter Herdbooks for 1990 and 1991. As a first calver she gave 2399kg at 4.82%BF in 305 days; as a second calver 2948kg at 4.31%BF in 301 days. In these days the Knotting and Woodmagic herds were still milk recording, and for a while in the early 1990's a milking herd was kept on the Isle of Wight. Old Herdbooks will help you for more extensive records, or Beryl Rutherford's book has some information on milking. Beryl had her own specially built rotary milking parlour.
Carol Clark of the Aiskew herd at Bedale in Yorkshire used to milk some, and ran a business called "The Small Cow and the Big Sheep" where the public could view the milking, and production of dairy products including ice cream. She may be able to offer advice.
You may find you have to feed them considerably more than would be necessary for feeding one calf, so watch the economics of the business.
We used hand and machine, both fine but tricky with a short leg. I would suggest starting a heifer as a milking cow rather than trying to milk a cow which has been suckling calves. Be gentle and persistent if they do not like it, maybe use minor restraint such as a twine round the tail and tie the tail to the leg above the hock. On no account retaliate if they kick - just carry on persistent and gently.

Good luck, it will be good to hear of Dexters milking for a living again.

Duncan

[Saffy]

Hello Larry,

How exciting - well done! :D

One of my cows has been both machine and hand milked in the past and I have decided to have a go at hand milking her when she calves this time. Mind you as she calves in December and I had a dairy herd and a nice parlour in another life, I may quietly change my mind!!!

The rest of my herd belonged to Beryl Rutherford who used to milk thier ancestors through a rotary parlour.

Do let us know how you get on and good luck.

Stephanie

[Carol K]

Are you testing for the A2 milk gene over there yet? If so I would say to try and start off with animals that are A2/A2 and you will be ahead of the curve, be able to use it in your advertising etc etc
Good luck with your venture, it will be a fun one I'm sure.

Carol K

[pudser]

Hi Larry,
I am amazed that noone has done this in recent times given the costs associated with carrying freisans etcThe main stream dairy men are crossing back to the channel island breeds to improve milk quality and reduce costs.Unfortunately both the Kerrys and the Dexters have not benefitted from being selected for milk.Particularly over the last 30 years while production per cow in conventional cows has rocketted.

I suggest you call to Miss hillard in Killarney who while not a great dexter fan milks (definitely up to few years ago) a sizeable herd of Kerrys.
Remember you will have good quality calves to sell but your acreage looks tight ?

Beir Bua

Pudser

[pudser]

Hi Larry,
I am amazed that noone has done this in recent times given the costs associated with carrying freisans etcThe main stream dairy men are crossing back to the channel island breeds to improve milk quality and reduce costs.Unfortunately both the Kerrys and the Dexters have not benefitted from being selected for milk.Particularly over the last 30 years while production per cow in conventional cows has rocketted.

I suggest you call to Miss hillard in Killarney who while not a great dexter fan milks (definitely up to few years ago) a sizeable herd of Kerrys.
Remember you will have good quality calves to sell but your acreage looks tight ?

Beir Bua

Pudser

[domsmith]

The standing joke here at sunnyside is when ever i get a new cow or heifer i say "thats another one for the diary herd". (i have 3 fresian heifers now collected from here and there)
i would love to do it and have dreamed of a mixed herd of dexter and jersey cows. 5 or 6 animal milking and using all the milk for cheese etc. i am sure it could work, BUT only if you dont include the set up cost!
processing equipment is so expensive.
we did a survey through Lanarkshire farmers markets and people always say they want dairy products including liquid milk. i doubt they reall y do but it keeps cropping up.

anyway when i retire thats what i will do! i would love the daily contact with the cows.

i would say go for it, if your near us i ll help you no probs!!

dom

[Rob R]

Be very, very careful. Our family history is dairying, with only one person left hanging on by the skin of his teeth now. We'd love to go back to it, but the numbers just don't work (yes selling direct etc etc) and there's a heck of a lot of capital involved to start up, to comply with regs and the machinery.

Dexters will do yield, but the milk is either low in butterfat or naturally homogenised so it doesn't taste creamy and it's hard to get cream off, make butter etc. We moved from dexter to jersey for our own supply of milk and came to the conclusion that dexter milk is better off in a dexter, as the jersey was just so much creamier, easier to work with and the cows themselves were much more compliant.

[Anna]

It is true that Dexter milk is more homogenised than milk from dairy breeds, but it is not supposed to be low in fat. For commercial butter making Dexters would maybe not be the best, but for drinking or cheese making their milk is perfect. A good dairy Dexter would deliver top quality; taste, fat and very suitable kaseins.

Yield and milk quality differs alot from cow to cow. This is true for every breed, but with a breed that has not been milked, tested and tasted in many years it is even more true.

Carols advise to go for A2 cows is good I think. Testing and tasting the milk before you buy cows will be worth it, even if it takes much more time to fill the barn up.

Good luck with your plans!

Ps. Have you tried Dexter milk yet? It tastes like sunshine and icecream. No, much better than icecream! The taste is very deep and full and sweet.

[Rob R]

I think whether the milk is 'perfect for drinking' is down to personal taste - perfect for you perhaps but when I and potential customers I've spoken to go out of our way to buy relatively expensive fresh/local/raw/organic milk (let alone milk it from my own cow) we want something that tastes creamy and old fashioned, unhomogenised. Sadly dexter tastes weak and 'flat', even compared to our family's british friesians the difference is stark, and disappointing, I guess thanks to the natural homogenisation? Our jerseys live on exactly the same diet and same regime, but the results are much better for far less hassle.

Also claims that it is not low in butterfat - does anyone know exactly what it is? As small differences makes a big difference - holstein can be as low as 3, and jersey as 'high' as 5.5 so a difference of 2.5% yet worlds apart. I would doubt dexter gets above 4.5 on a good day.

Some people don't like their milk creamy...wouldn't they just buy semi skimmed then? As a business this is brilliant for you IF you have a high butterfat breed as you can effortlessly skim the cream off and sell the remainder to these folks who don't like it creamy. If you're not getting creamy milk to start with, you need more and we're not talking a high yielding breed and only 18acres to do it on. All these things need thinking about and after a heck of a lot of thinking about them we've come to the conclusion that it barely works with a dedicated dairy breed, let alone dexters. Note that most of the people that tell you it WAS viable are talking in the past tense :laugh:

[domsmith]

Its clear there is a disagreement about the quality of dexter milk. i have always it belived it to be getting near to equal to channel island breeds. but i dont know.

I am curious to find out which is correct. Anna is clearly making a high quality product. Rob is sure its not up to it.
i think i will have to try it, i will have to try at getting one of our little loves through our parlour,(loose term for a cubicle with a milking machine behind it)

until proven otherwise i still believe dexter will be the perfect animal for a micro dairy. mix it maybe with something for volume or cream.

keep dreaming :p

[Anna]

Sadly dexter tastes weak and 'flat', even compared to our family's british friesians the difference is stark, and disappointing ..

Are you serious? In my experince the Dexter milk is the less flat tasting milk I ever tried. Skimmed Dex milk has more fat left in the milk (due to homogenisation), and I find it far more tasty than skimmed Holstein or Swedish Fjall milk. (But I normally don´t skim drinking milk, I drink it as fat as possible. For cheese making I sometimes skim, since the milk during some seasons can be to fat for a good result.)

My Dexters provides exellent milk I think, but wouldn´t suite a commercial business. To little milk..

[Duncan MacIntyre]

Having recorded Burnside Holly through two lactations every 21 days, I can say with confidence that her Butter Fat was only twice below 4%, then only slightly. The figures published for recorded cows are averages - one recording from Holly had 6.25%BF.It averaged 4.82% in her first lactation and 4.33% in 2nd.

Although not all the cows I have milked were recorded I can say truthfully that if there was any fault found by those consuming the milk it was that it was TOO creamy. Dexter cream is much paler than that of a Jersey, so it is not so obvious, though this varies a bit with diet.

Modern commercial dairy herds rarely average as much as 7500kg per 305 day lactation, and the modern dairy cow is almost 3 times the weight of a milking dexter - we could hold our heads up in modern milk production better than you might think. Most of the published data on Dexter milk comes of course from a different era in cattle nutrition - it would be very interesting to see a good sized herd on a modern feed system.

Lets not talk our breed down.

Duncan

[Anna]

When I say "too little milk" I really don´t mean all Dexters. Good milky Dexters could definitely be good companions in a small quality cheese dairy.

My cow has quite a mediocre production and length of lactation
But she is nice to work with



Edited By Anna on 1287149308

[pudser]

I was surprised to see Robs comments but I'm not in a position to disagree but if one were to breed for milk I think production could be ramped up over a few generations.I regret that some many years of potential genetic improvement have been lost.
there is a huge move towards new entrants to dairying on this side of the pound in anticipipation of quotas being abolished.The rise in milk price this summer will send a few more down this road.

Whats happening with Crossgar?has the scheme worked as I heard whispers that it had been over subscribed?

pudser