Who is milking Dexters?

[Rob R]

I've seen quite a few Dexters advertised as dual purpose recently, and I know plenty of people keeping them commercially for beef but don't know of anyone doing the same for milk - how do you qualify a dual purpose animal?

[Saffy]

Hello Rob,

Well I thought dexters were a dual purpose breed, as in they can be used for beef or for milking and I think it is as simple as that. However we are probably in danger of losing the best milking qualities if we don't select for it and we probably don't as most of us are breeding for beef.

My herd come from Beryl who did milk all of hers through her rotary parlour and so they were bred for both milk and beef by Beryl.

I do intend to try to carry on selecting for both, I hope I shall be able to do this especially as I have a background in dairying and beef production and appreciate a good udder, along with good all round conformation especially legs and feet. It is always several weeks before the calves here can take all the milk the cows produce.

Stephanie

One of my older cows has been milked both by hand and by machine before I bought her.

[Rob R]

As I always understood it the only difference between a good suckler dam & a good dairy animal was better udder capacity (and associated traits) in the dairy animal. A lot of the dual purpose animals seem only to have been used as suckler dams, so I was wondering how you verify the phenotype if you don't allow it to show itself. If it's a case of observing them in those first few weeks before the udder & calf adjusts to the demand/supply, then perhaps I've unwittingly got dual purpose animals.

We did milk a Dexter for a while, and found the yield to be adequate for the needs of ourselves and the calf, but the milk was naturally too homogenised and we switched to Jerseys for milking.

[Broomcroft]

Out of interest, we have crossed Dexter with Angus and have bred from the cross heifers. Had the first three calves last week or two. Anyhow, the crosses are very milky. I was hoping they'd pass that trait on and they have, at least in these three. Their udders aren't as large compared to body size as most of our pure Dexters, but for heifers they're still excellent. Their calves won't be going hungry for sure .

[Jac]

I've seen quite a few Dexters advertised as dual purpose recently, and I know plenty of people keeping them commercially for beef but don't know of anyone doing the same for milk - how do you qualify a dual purpose animal?

They are supposed to be a dual-purpose breed but unfortunately, the milk aspect has been neglected since people stopped milking them commercially. I have been monitoring the milk yields/ease of letdown in my herd for a few years now (in a very casual way). I purchased the last cow bred by Jane Paynter and although she turned to suckler in her latter years the influence of her Knotting milk line remains strong - bigger udder capacity, easy peasy let down, good legs and feet I have been fortunate in that she has given me three heifers to date, the first one calved last month (another heifer). Before Beryl departed she was following my progress and how I was attempting to further increase the milking qualities in my beef line but she said that I was destined for disappointment because the genes involved were at the opposite ends of the spectrum -or words to that effect.

Things have taken a turn for the worse for us here at the moment due to an elderly relative's health issues with the result that my new mini parlour (which should have been completed and in use this spring) has had to be temporarily abandoned in a half finished state and all the cows/heifers have had to be turned out with their calves.

[Rob R]

Things have taken a turn for the worse for us here at the moment due to an elderly relative's health issues with the result that my new mini parlour (which should have been completed and in use this spring) has had to be temporarily abandoned in a half finished state and all the cows/heifers have had to be turned out with their calves.

I know that feeling - our new cattle shed is in a similar state - I was hoping it'd be ready for calving, but I'm aiming for calving next year now.