Where would we be without showing dexters - have a think?

[Mark Bowles]

Well not to be one who ducks an argument, here goes.
There seems to be people in the society who seem to think showing dexters is some kind of unattainable,unessasary,bragging thing to do.
I would like to stand up and say that we must support the merry band of members that are about to hit the shows this weekend and for the next 5 months, putting in hours and days of time and not least expense to promote their own and the breeds top dexters. Where would the breed be without the historical support from the top show herds in the past.
Saltaire,Harron,Moomin,Knotting,Templeton,NeedlesHall,Langley End, to name but a few ( sorry to any who i have not mentioned but the list is very long and ANY person that has ever shown deserves applause)
Also short legged dexters, carriers!!!! they are spoken about as if they have some kind of alien desease. Where would the breed be without them. Bulldog calves are NOT a problem , if you have any kind of common sense and you are a responsible person who finds out about the breed of cattle you are about to keep then there shoud be no issue, no bulldogs.
I could go on...and on.
The breed is dear to me and showing is important to the breed and me as a breeder.
So take a pride in the breed, try to breed the best you can. Thats how it survived thru the tough times and my thanks go to the dedicated few that showed at that time and pulled the breed through.

[Sylvia]

I have the greatest admiration for people who find the time, foot the expense etc etc of showing.

But, as with halter training, being taken to a show does not in itself make that a better animal than those who do not go. The show winner is the best animal, in that ring, before that judge, on that day. And hurrah for them.

Showing is an excellent shop window for the breed.

But if people are concentrating on other things (which are not apparent in the show ring, usually) like good, easy, regular calvings, longevity, or other things which are equally important to the breed and are breeding to the Standard, their animals should not be looked down upon simply because they haven't been paraded round a show ring.

As for the bulldog gene a decision has to be made now that there is more information about it. Either:

1. Knowing how to avoid it, we live with it, accepting that most short typical Dexters are carriers or

2. Everyone agrees that it should be eliminated as soon as possible in which case it is highly likely that the Dexter as we know it will change significantly.

This decision really does need to be taken because there won't be harmony in the Dexter world while people with short typical Dexters are being regularly told that they are somehow 'not quite right'.

[natmadaboutdexters]

I know a lot of people rear Dexters for their meat and do not have the time to enter shows. We have a very small herd and bought our Dexters with the intention of showing/breeding. We do not have enough land or housing to rear calves for beef and as the cattle are housed away from where we live I have only a limited time to halter train any. This means that the few that are halter trained are entered in as many shows as we can manage (normally 3 or 4 per year). I understand that there are the serious show people out there and I admire them for the time and effort that they put into breeding the best animal for the show. Believe it or not we do it for the enjoyment. The satisfaction of training, showing and maybe even obtaining a prize is worth the early starts and the long days at the shows. Plus you get to meet lots of other Dexter minded people whom we have found to be very friendly and welcoming to the world of showing cattle.
Natasha

[Rutherford]

Mark, my quarrel is not with showing as such, but with the folks who think it is the only factor of prime importance. As Sylvia says, some of us out there are working hard on the things that make the difference in the cattle paying their way, today few can keep an animal the size of a cow simply as a pet.
The show ring puts the Dexter in the public eye and provides a benchmark to guide breeders on the ideal type. But unless it is going to slaughter out well and provide a good quality meat, or milk well enough to rear a good calf with some surplus for those who want it, simply parading a pretty beast round the ring is not going to provide an animal which will survive. We have largely lived on our inheritance until now, but unless we start measuring these things we are likely to lose them.
Sylvia, please remember I spent my first eighteen years breeding the short leg, which is what attracted me to the Dexter.
I don’t think I would have ever taken steps away, if I had thought I was destroying the original. By then I had learnt that there were two types of short legged cattle about, but the one was being swamped by the other, which tended on the face of it to carry rather more beef. If you look at enough old photographs you will see it for yourself. The first bull I ever saw, I was convinced at the time was ‘short leg’, but he was in fact the type I now breed. In aiming for beef they killed off most of the original and there are still not that many about, but they are being resuscitated. Look at page 47of the current Bulletin, Brunswick Blossom. The bulldog type look more beefy, because shrinking the size of the skeleton leaves that impression, although the weight of bone remains similar.
It is certainly possible to avoid the bulldog calf by using a long leg bull, but you are still likely to find the parents giving you the wrong shape calf which halves your chances of improvement. I found it was always my best cows that persisted in giving me long leg calves, which I needed to cull, when I was aiming for a short leg herd. By going for the alternative true breeder, I could retain them all and cull for commercial attributes, speeding the process considerably. Moreover it is impossible to breed for size when breeding the short, since it is only when they don’t pick up the bulldog gene you can see the true size. The biggest animals running with my herd today are not my breeding
Beryl (Woodmagic)

[carole]

Simple answer Mark, if we had not had the opportunity to talk to Dexter owners at shows, we would not be owning Dexters now.

[Ian H]

I'm the same as carole if i hadn't spoken to mark at the royal show a couple of years ago, i wouldn't have got into dexters. I would love to have a go at showing my dexters but wouldn't know where to start and i think they might be a bit to loopy for the showring
Regards Ian Hornsby

[Mark Bowles]

Just to establish my point on this subject.
We have just showed at Leicestershire County show this weekend where dexter numbers were down but stacked up better than other breeds.
A 6 year old dexter cow won reserve supreme DAIRY interbreed, beaten by a holstein. That is priceless promotion and respect for the Dexter breed, as they say, you have to be in it to win it!
I rest my case.
PS, thanks Ian, i cant put a face to the name but its nice to now i get thru to at least someone.

[Broomcroft]

I didn't read anything that anyone said as anti-showing unless I missed it. How can you be anti-showing? If anything I have said has been taken that way, then I haven't explained myself properly. We go to all local shows; we show sheep; we go to see the Dexters. We got into Dexters via tasting the beef, shows didn't come into it. What was being said was that because animals were at shows and because they were halter trained (which was misunderstood I feel), they were better animals! You just said it yourself. That to me is what was being disputed. What is good for shows, isn't necessarily good for other purposes. That's the same with our particular breeds of sheep and I assume others. What you pick for a show may not, in fact usually isn't what you would pick for the best lamb producer, or breeding. We got about 9 tups, one a royal show winner, and at the other end a scraggy thing from probably the best line in the UK. Their progeny are no different.

In direct answer to where would we be without showing, not very far I would say.



Edited By Broomcroft on 1210075177

[wagra dexters]

My problem is:- where to from here for our zero-Woodmagic females? Back to their grandsire every generation? Only 3 AI sires in this country with no Woodmagic at all, and one of those is a poll carrier, whom we won't use anyway because he has too much close up Parndon, and we would want to see DNA evidence to prove that the polling is a genuine mutation. I have less of a selection problem with our zero-Parndon line, but apart from two AI bulls, they are predominantly Woodmagic.

'Woodmagic' it seems has done better than any of the show names mentioned, at becoming synonymous internationally with 'Dexter', so the showing argument for breed or herd promotion is a bit slim. Some of the Woodmagic comes into the lines as very early sales, and some later, so the sales seem to have been fairly consistent over more than 50 plus years.

Not bad for word-of-mouth and written article promotion.

There is nothing unworthy about showing for promotional purposes, or for the sheer pleasure of it. It is good fun, with lots of camaraderie between people with a common interest. I do miss showing, but the stock we had such success with, at the few big shows we did attend, have not deteriorated in quality just because we don't show any more.

Margaret.



Edited By wagra dexters on 1210164456

[Saffy]

A slightly different take on the subject of showing Dexters.

I have noticed that most Dexters shown are of the Short variety is there a reason for that?

Do they conform more correctly to the breed standard and are thereby more likely to be at the desirable end of the line?

Are they the preferred type of most judges and thereby more likely to be at the desirable end of the line?

Is it simply that more Short breeders show?

I ask because in a very small - local way we would like to have a go with our small in stature, long legs at some point!!!

Also any advice on showing them at their best would be appreciated, at the moment our young bull who is 10 months old and our old dun cow are the only ones that lead but hopefully one of the girls will pop us out a pretty little heifer calf for us to work on as well!

Stephanie

[redhill]

Saffy, we found out by trial and error that you look at the judges name and the type of stock he or she keeps,if its a dedicated short leg person,dont bother, if its someone who keeps genuine dual purpose Dexters,(beef and milk) not( beef and show) then you stand as much chance with your Dexters as anyone else in the ring, I can remember Bill being told by one judge,at Chepstow show that our young bull would be better off in the freezer ,this was a breeder of what we would call dwarf Dexters,and our lad was going through his "adolescent" phase,This was my first experience of showing our cattle and it wasnt a pleasant experience to be placed at the end of the line and not know why.Any way our non short Dominic didnt go into the freezer,he was placed in many more local shows, quite succesfully,and is father to most of our Dexters,(his pedigree is woodmagic/cobthorne),sorry if this sounds a bit negative, a lot of time and energy goes into showing and those of you who do have my greatest admiration,The Midland group have a herd competition every two years where the judge comes to your farm,this is the only competition we now enter,perhaps with so many restrictions in place this is a way forward. Bill gave a trophy to Berkeley show to be awarded to the best dual purpose,traditional Dexter,this was returned to us two years ago as no Dexters fitted this catagory we hope that the Midland group will make this trophy part of their herd competition. Sue

[Saffy]

Are there any veteran classes for Dexters?

I ask as I don't think our dun cow is too bad for 12 years old.

Stephanie

[Saffy]

Any advice on showing them then?

When we were showing the Friesians back in the 70s we would trim the tails a bit and the across the shoulder, a bit around the poll and the udder. Oh, and we would put chalk on some of the white bits - I forgot that!

It is little snippets like that we need to know as we don't have a clue!!! Does anything get trimmed, are there any other little quirks we need to know about.

What classes are there likely to be?

We are of the assumption that they need a good bath, apart form that???

How much does it matter if they have teeny bits of horn, about say a half inch?

We are near Abergavenny in South Wales and only intend to go to a couple of little shows, just to give it a go.

Stephanie

[Broomcroft]

Stephanie - We don't show Dexters, we do our sheep though, but a couple of years ago we had a "how to prepare Dexters for a show" day here at Broomcroft, and it was put on by our local group. They used our ex-show cows as demos. Are you a member of a local group? Maybe they have something set up or could arrange a day like the one we had. They are very popular I imagine as loads turned up.

[Saffy]

Joining a local group sounds a really good idea but I am not sure that there actually is one local to us.

Which would be the one to join for us we live 4 miles from Abergavenny and 10 from Monmouth.

Stephanie