Dexter Cattle For Sale Discussion Board

Well, the day has arrived when, after breeding 85 Dexter calves, I have finished registering my lovely Dexter heifers and will now only birth notify them. Sadly they are worth so much more money for beef, even just selling straight to the abattoir, than I can get for them when selling them for breeding stock, especially when factoring in TB costs.
A sad day
And an even sadder one this week when 2 really lovely heifers are off to the abattoir

That's precisely the situation I came to quite a few years back now, and we haven't looked back. We went totally non-pedigree and didn't even birth notify. It didn't make any difference, in fact it opened up sales for both breeding and beef/stores.

I do hate taking heifers (and ewe lambs) for slaughter for some reason!

The trouble is that buyers can afford to pay a bit more for beef as their capital will be tied up for a much shorter time, and as long as everyone keeps registering every female that pops out there is always going to be lower prices for them. Unless you have a market for surplus heifers there isn't much point registering anything but the very best and keeping them as replacements. My only reluctance about beefing heifers is when they are bought in, unless you keep them for at least 9 months or have them PD'ed then you don't know if they might be in-calf.

Does birth notification, and being from pedigree parentage obviously, mean that the animal would be classified as pedigree for TB compensation purposes?

Unfortunately not so. The birth notified castrated males (steers) we have lost to TB, have been classed as commercial beef for the purposes of compensation. For a registered bull and registered cow a few years ago we received 'pedigree' compensation.

Two months ago two fully registered cows, one with calf at foot, tested as inconclusive. The one without a calf at foot will be going this week having tested as a reactor; she is a four year old cow having calved and according to the compensation table we should receive £1,992. Thankfully the cow with calf at foot has gone clear, so she is now out with the bull. You will need to prove full registration to get 'pedigree' compensation. If you check your local Animal Health website under TB compensation you will see the rates which vary month to month.

Well worth considering getting pedigree bulls and cows DCS registered as the compensation paid for pedigree registered stock is more than commercial beef prices.

I am afraid many people are complacent about TB, but it is spreading and many breeders such as ourselves with closed herds for several years and no other contact with cattle are continually in and out of TB breakdown periods. All the cattle we have lost to TB have looked very healthy and you would presume in good health, only a few having had a lesion somewhere in their body.

Regards
Alison Kirk
Boram Dexters

In my opinion and experience there is some uncertainty about this question. The legislation says 'pedigree' animal and that is not dependent upon full registration and so if you insist, your AH office will find it hard to argue that they have to be fully registered. Pedigree, means that the animal has recorded / provable parentage; it does not mean that one has registered the animal Certainly for young bulls that can only be birth notified (and cannot be fully registered) they will accept birth notification.

For castrated males it makes no difference, these are only commercially valued animals.

I hope this makes sense.

The following was in a TB South-West newsletter following the new rules in 2012:

"For example, it will be made clear that; i) pedigree compensation rates are only payable for animals with breeding potential ; ii) only owners of animals with full pedigree certificates will receive pedigree compensation rates.

If you have a bull calf DCS birth notified as 'MALE' and not 'CASTRATED' you will get pedigree compensation without the full registration certificate as in i) above; the birth notification being sufficient to claim.

If you have a birth notified only heifer without being fully registered I doubt you would get pedigree compensation once she has reached breeding age, as females over a certain age need to have calved to claim the pedigree rate as in (ii) above.

Alison Kirk
Boram Dexters

I think we are both saying the same thing in effect, but I will just reiterate, the legislation is the document to check and that is quoted below.

"pedigree animal” means a bovine animal of the genus Bos in respect of which a pedigree certificate has been issued by a recognised breed society and presented to the Secretary of State or an agent acting on her behalf by the day of the assessment of the category into which the animal falls.

The birth notification papers have the parentage on them and so are a record of pedigree; the law makes no requirement of a "full" pedigree document. That doesn't mean that individual offices may not try to reduce their costs by trying to pay less, but neither does it make it legal.

So if an animal is birth notified and therefore included in the pedigree herd book, they are considered pedigree, whether fully registered or not (except steers).

Is that correct?

If you're in a TB area, then keeping them as bulls as long as possible could make a lot of sense?

Sorry to hear about you TB problems Alison. Because of the threat of TB, we have reduced our herd to almost nothing compared to what we had, now we're mainly sheep instead. And in spite of being a closed herd with double-fencing everywhere, we have had our first case of confirmed TB, so it has to be from wildlife, either that or flying cattle.

Dear Clive,

That is the main point, I suppose. There is a question on the interpretation by the AHO, but the law says pedigree. In the case of females I do not know of the rule being tested, but in the case of bulls, it certainly has been. Now if the AHO can prove that they are animals intended for commercial usage, they may still try to interpret things differently, but again, it has to come down to the law.
If you keep males entire with a view to some being sold as pedigree bulls you are entitled to have pedigree valuation if you have a birth notification certificate that shows the parentage and therefore is a pedigree.
One day, one party or another will test the interpretation of the law, but at the moment there is no other definition as to pedigree. The law says pedigree; it does not say registered.
(NB. I am not a lawyer only a farmer and vet interpreting the rules!)

Rob

Hi Clive, We're continuing with Dexters despite regular TB breakdowns, usually one every 12 months. Since December 2011 our cattle have had five whole herd tests, one severe interpretation whole herd test and a contiguous test on a small group last September. When the vet clips the neck to test, many of the older have white dots where they have been tested previously.

We still have up to 180 cattle when we calve in the autumn and decided seven years ago to slaughter heifers as the demand for beef was there. This has saved our business and we can still continue to slaughter under licence and don't have to worry about not being able to sell heifers for breeding.

It would be interesting if AHO were challenged about birth notified animals when the opportunity arises, but we have been asked for our 'pedigree certificate' and not 'birth notified certificate', but AHO probably don't know the difference anyway.

Regards
Alison Kirk
Boram Dexters

We had one beast go down, but the thing that amazed me more than anything was the paperwork. It must have been 1/4" thick, letter after letter in tiny print. So I phoned Animal Health and told them that I was a bit dixxyleczic and couldn't read small print (both of which are true) so could they just tell me what it said. The person on the line told me not to worry because all it said was that we were closed down till further notice .

Not knocking AH by the way, they were incredibly helpful and understanding, it was just the paperwork mountain I thought was amusing.