First return of Dexters to Ireland

[JohnO]

Reading the profiles of the candidates for our new council I noted that Mrs Carol Neilson took credit for reintroducing Dexters to Southern Ireland in June 2006. This got me to wondering when Dexters were first actually reintroduced to Ireland. The earliest date I have come up with is 1968. The Irish veterinary college acquired stock from the Shadwell dispersal sale and formed a herd in Ireland called St. Gobnaits. The first calf born under this herd name was Holly born on the 29/03/1969. Funding for this reintroduction was withdrawn in 1974 and the stock were transferred to David Couper who formed the Cornahir herd. This herd continues today and is one of the most important Dexter herds in the world. It has suffered neither from the Appendix register nor the extraordinary levels of mutation within the breed which have given us, among other things, the dun colour and polling!
Does anyone else know of an earlier reintroduction or when the last Dexter in Ireland died or when the last birth was registered prior to their extinction in Ireland?

[wagra dexters]

Woodmagic breeding has the dun gene, proven by genetic testing (ref. Carol Davidson) to be uniquely Dexter rather than introduced from another breed.

Polling was accepted in some countries as pure Dexter before we had the benefit of DNA parent verification, Godstone Esmeralda reportedly having had no horned offspring among her numerous calves by horned bulls.

In both cases of "extraordinary levels of mutation" we have only got the word of the breeders who registered these cattle that their breeding is squeaky clean, just as with the Cornahir herd.

We accept that Cornahir Outlaw is absolutely pure back to the arc because his pedigree says so, even though he puts creamy (jersey look-alike) muzzles on his dark red calves, brindling on some line-bred red calves, and far too much black on other reds. But his pedigree says he has no introgression so we have to accept that he is pure, just as we accept the dun gene and the polling, even though only the dun gene has been proven to be uniquely Dexter, to my knowledge, which could be wrong.

Our herd is intensely Woodmagic Hedgehog/Cornahir Outlaw. If we could get our hands on straws from another Wm bull and another Cornahir bull, we would be over the moon.
Margaret

[JohnO]

Thank you for your reply.
I think you will find that of the characteristics you associate with the Cornahir herd the only one that Cornahir carries is wild red. This characteristic is widespread within the Dexter breed and not unique to animals with Cornahir or Shadwell blood. It is interesting to note that reds still occur within the Kerry breed, which only allows black, and some of these reds have black noses and dark hairs. The Kerry and Dexter both originate from the same stock in Ireland. It is also worth noting that some of the most knowledgeable Dexter breeders say the original Dexter red was mahogany which is the colour of the darker Shadwell/Cornahir red animals.

You may have noted that Woodmagic eliminated red from the herd very early on. I wonder why. Are you aware that Woodmagic Goldfinch was originally registered red but later changed to dun. If you are interested in characteristics which may have come from introgression its worth looking at lines descended from Parndon Charley Pudding. It is widely accepted that he is not what it says on the tin. Some of the channel islands characteristics that you describe definitely come from this line.

I think there has been much confusion between fawn, which is a variant of wild red, and the woodmagic dun which has led some to conclude that dun existed without woodmagic blood. I am not aware of any dun animal which does not contain the blood of Grinstead Plover. The woodmagic herd concentrated this blood and somehow got the new colour which resulted accepted into the breed standard. The only other herd from which the dun colour descends is the statenboro herd via the bull Raby Bosun which descended from grinstead plover. Note that this blood is present in at least one of the original population bulls which are offered on AI.
I understand laboratory testing was done on this dun colour. Is it possible to get a list of the breeds which were tested and the extent of the testing done before the conclusion that the woodmagic dun was unique was drawn? Was Redpoll tested? Redpoll is derived from two main breeds Suffolk Dun and Norfolk Red. The dun colour appears not to manifest itself within the breed however it would be unlikely to express as black is not an accepted colour within the breed. The breeder of Grinstead Plover also had a Redpoll herd at the time of Plovers breeding. I have seen early photographs of the Woodmagic herd and of Suffolk Duns and they are remarkably similar. In 1939 the redpoll society revised their breed standard because it was having problems with colour. The revised standard stated that "though not a disqualification, a sandy colour is an objection".
Redpoll was also trying to sort out polling at that time and "without horns or slugs or abortive horns" became the standard. Aborted horns still exist within the Dexter breed in animals descended from Grinstead Plover.

As previously stated the Cornahir herd has no appendix animals in its breeding. There have been various suggestions of non dexter characteristics within the herd but none of these have been substantiated either by molecular or morphological techniques.
One of the suggestions is that Cornahir animals are large. I have measured all the cornahir animals and all are within the valid breed standard of 42 inches maximum for a cow. I have a three and a half year old Cornahir, Moomin Macduff cross bull. Macduff was a large bull. I have been told he was 48 inches. My bull is forty three and a half inches.

By the way the currently published breed standard states the maximum height for a cow as 44 inches and for a bull as 48 inches. The minimum heights are stated as 38 and 42 inches respectively. The published standard not only increased the maximum height of both cows and bulls by 2 inches it also increased the minimum height for bulls by 2 inches!! I am not joking.. it INCREASES the minimum height of the smallest breed in Ireland or Britain. These modifications were made without reference to either the membership or to an AGM. For this reason I believe the valid standard is the old rather than the published one.

It is an interesting exchange.... let it flow

[wagra dexters]

JohnO, yours is the kind of input that inspires enthusiasm. Please continue.

You may have noted that Woodmagic eliminated red from the herd very early on. I wonder why.

Beryl thought she had lost red in her herd but after she sold a bull to Philippa Laing the first calf, or one of the first calves, on the ground was red!! She so lamented her loss that I later offered to have colour tests done on several possible red carriers in her herd as a birthday present to her. That didn't happen but within the year before she died she took in a red bull to join to the possiblities, in the hope of breeding a red calf. Beryl died before the cows could calve.
Carol Davidson who organised the dun tests is coming to Au for the AGM but I can't get away to attend. I will find the reports in my archives somewhere, unless someone in UK can find theirs before I do.
JohnO, I wouldn't dare go on a witch hunt regarding any introgression in the Dexter breed. We had no Dexter females in Australia three decades ago. A large part of our national herd is upgraded, so 10 generations or more down the track cows from those foundations still don't have Dexter mitochodrials, and never will.
We (Wagra) play around with what we do have. We have one non-upgrade heifer with no Parndon breeding and one non-upgrade heifer with no Woodmagic breeding but can't take them any further because I reached a genetic cul-de-sac!! Where to go??
What we do have in Australia though is a complete history of parent verification ever since our beginnings thirty years ago, firstly by blood, then as soon as was possible by DNA. We don't have parentage mistakes, accidental or intentional, in our breed herd book.

[wagra dexters]

My grand-daughter's heifer, Jamboru Forever, by Cornahir Outlaw from a CO grand-daughter.

[Broomcroft]

Did any of Beryl's females have a red calf after she passed away Margaret?

[wagra dexters]

I don't know Clive, sorry. Apart from Stephanie's & Tim's I know nothing of the rest of the herd.
Darn, I followed all the instructions but I still can't get the photos to work.

[marion]

Hi, Not sure how long ago Beryl thought she had lost her red, but one of the Woodmagic heifers imported into Canada carried red. She was Woodmagic Parula's Warbler 2nd born in September 1977: Sire - WM Squirrel 2nd GBM2072, Dam - WM Parula's Warbler GBF8715..marion

[wagra dexters]

Marion, Wm Mole 2nd sired reds from 1992 to 1998 acccording to the DCS online herdbook.
His sire was Wm March Hare 2nd, the only animal from the Z family still represented in Beryl's herd at the time her book was published.

Clive, check out Broomcroft Advocate then Progeny. They are all black though, so she might have been disappointed.
Margaret.

[Broomcroft]

Here is a photo of Margaret's grand-daughter's heifer "Jamboru Forever", by Cornahir Outlaw from a CO grand-daughter



And what a fine looking heifer she is.

[JohnO]

Thank you for your reply and your encouragement.
I have no desire to start a witch hunt but rather to acquire as much infromation as I can to inform my breeding choices. As I have said previously Mike Sinnott of the Steepmarsh herd is my mentor in this regard and it is his hard work which has made much information available to me. He sent me Carol Davidson's papers a few years ago and drew my attention to comments by her on this forum ( back in 2002 ). However I have never seen a list of the breeds tested or information on the extent of the testing before the conclusion was drawn that Dexter dun is unique.

Regarding whether red was eliminated from the Woodmagic herd intentionally or by accident it is worth studying the breeding choices made within that herd. It would also be a good idea to closely study descendant and ancestor stock of Pigeons Black Bryony if you are interested in black red combinations be they : coat mix, skin/coat mixes or changling effect.

Are you interested in importing bull semen or embryos to widen or focus breeding choice in Australia ?

[Duncan MacIntyre]

On the issue of red in the Woodmagic herd, I was personally told by Beryl that she was very sad to have lost the red, but at that time, I don't remember exactly when but probably about 10 or 11 years ago, there were animals registered from one Woodmagic parent in the UK herdbook, but not very many. To have tested her existing herd for red factor at the time would have been good, but I know she could not afford to do it. We did not have the on-line herdbook in these days so not so easy to trace things.

On the issue of red in North American Dexters of Woodmagic origin, I have heard, though stand to be corrected if I am wrong, that initally after the Woodmagic imports progeny which were Dun were registered as Red.

Duncan

[marion]

On the issue of red in North American Dexters of Woodmagic origin, I have heard, though stand to be corrected if I am wrong, that initally after the Woodmagic imports progeny which were Dun were registered as Red.
Duncan

Hi Duncan, The WM imports into Canada were relatively recent (1978 I think), and dun was definitely recognized as dun. There was a concerted effort to breed for red, and Parula's Warbler 2nd was eventually bred to a black carrying red bull (got his red from a son of Lucifer), producing a red heifer calf, and the next year a dun heifer calf by the same sire. I believe it was during Beryl's trip to the US that she informed them that their 'red's' were actually duns. Then, because it was not possible to check all those reg'd as red, the records were changed to read 'red/dun'. I believe the ADCA requires a DNA test now to register as red..marion

[wagra dexters]

Thank you Clive for posting the photo.
John, I only know what Beryl told me over the last 10 years of her life. I do know that one of her wishes was to see the entire landscape of Ireland crawling with small non-carrier Dexter cows!
She alternated bulls from the different dam-lines, choosing sons from best milk-producing dams within those families because she survived on her milk cheque. The story of her decision to select for non-carrier is well documented. Other folk who knew her personally and for decades earlier will know more about the history of the Woodmagic herd.
John, see PM
Margaret

[Minnie]

Hi Margaret,

She's absolutely beautiful, I love the red with black nose.

Vicki