Too many wrong bulls left entire

[robin walker]

It is great that the Society is increasing its membership by so many , however i do get concerned that so many Dexters are being bred without proper selection and I feel that so many young bulls are coming to market left entire, bulls that i feel will not benefit the best of the breed . I think unless breeders are sure that the bull calf should be left entire , they should be rung at birth and head down the beef route . I hope that new members some who have no back ground or not familiar with keeping cattle are selective in their breeding.
I hope i am not alone in these thoughts

[marcus]

I could not agree more, there are far too many bulls out there with poor conformation.
What is the point of a bull with poor hindquarters?.

[Mark Bowles]

Here is a prime example for Linear Classification. Proffesioal respected assessors looking at your stock and giving it a score so you can see the strenghts and weaknesses that the animal has. Newbies cannot be expected to know what they are looking at and in a lot of cases keep bulls because it is easier than castrating them. I hear the same story time and time again, oh he's lovelly, he's quiet, he's this, he's that!
The tool is there for all the membership, use it!!!

[Duncan MacIntyre]

As Mark says linear assessment will give us much more info about what we are breeding. It is not just the overall total score that is important, it give the strengths and weaknesses of each individual. For keeping a bull it may be very relevant to look at the parents and grandparents, but of course this info will take time to build. However if we do not make a start we won't get there. Because of the age for starting, it will be particularly useful to assess parents of potential bulls.

Duncan

[Jac]

The problem with linear scoring in respect of bulls is that it only judges the bull. It is possible to strike lucky and breed a lovely looking bull that will score well on the score sheet but with no prepotency. The bull scheme where parents and offspring were assessed although it did not prove popular with the membership was I feel, a better way of judging the worth of a bull.

[Mark Bowles]

Hi Jac, the linear can assess the dam ( females get assessed on 18 linear traits) when she is in milk and also offspring of the bull as they get older and in milk.Before the dam either passed or failed, it did not tell you what she was like. The scheme will be better than the old bull scheme as unlimited bull progeny can be assessed properly therefore giving proper bull proofs. The old stage 2 looked at 6 offspring, you did not know which ones and also what faults they had. The linear is totally transparent and once you learn to read the results it will be invaluble.

[robin walker]

I think we all agree and i would like to back Mark and Duncan up on linear classification and the more we can do to separate the men from the boys the better . I have only been into Dexters for 3 years but from a farming background i have made every effort to obtain good cattle . Just two or three years ago the breed was classed as a rare breed and now we are a minority breed and before long i fear we will be another common breed . We all wish to be profitable in our production but we must now take care of the Dexter and not just wish our cows to have any old calf .

[Pennielea]

A dfifficulty arises in relying on linear classification to assist with selection of young bulls. They cannot be done until they are two tyears of age which apart from anything else then incurs the penalty of overage registration. The decision to castrate needs to be made much earlier than this. By all means use linear if selecting and buying in a senior bull.

Ian

[Duncan MacIntyre]

Surely what we need to do is to use linear assessment to identify potential bull PARENTS.
With the "elite" bull scheme I found that after ticking all the boxes and finding that the animal had passed with flying colours, when I looked again at the whole animal it often did not look like a good joined up Dexter. I think the linear assessment with many more traits assessed will give a much more meaningful result. We must realise that it will be a considerable time before enough assessments are built up to let the scheme reach its maximum usefulness.

We also need to remember that as a large number of Dexter herds are small and kept by part time farmers who work full time elsewhere, there tend to be a lot more bulls needed in proportion to the total number of females when compared with more "conventional" breeds. The obvious answer might be AI, but often this is difficult due to owners working etc.. It may well be this feature of the breed which has helped us keep a wide range of genetic diversity within a well identified breed as proved by the Cardiff project.

Duncan

[car]

Veronica schofield started the bull sceam with the hope of improving bulls. I took over and spent hundreds of hours devising forms, coming up with stamps for the pedegree certificates, writing articals for the buletin trying to explain the importance of selecting a good proven dam before keeping a bull calf. a good bull is not what he looks like it is what he produces.

Now comes my moan; The forms I produced were pictural not tick boxes
The idea was that,all traits were recorded and could be compered and collated at a later date.
Anyone could look at them and see if the same traits ie high tail head were present in the dam, bull and progeny.
some of the things recorded at the time were not only ment to give to owner of the animal some sort of reference for their own herd, but could have ten years on given us our own guide to Dexter liner assesment.

Unfortunately it all went pear shaped.
some members didnt quite see the long term efect and benifits that could be acheived. and for other reasons I not prepared to air on this site.
I know Mark and others have put alot of effort into their project lets hope the membership see the benefits this time. We all need to pull together to keep the Dexter breed standard on the right track.
On a very personal and passionate note if people want to change the standard why not change breed.

[Louisa Gidney]

In reply to Marcus, a bull with light hindquarters might well be a good transmitter of dairy qualities in his heifers. At the moment the breed is heavily beef oriented, but it should still retain the capacity to produce small-scale commercial dairy cattle when the demand arises again in the future.
My first bull had light hindquarters but his daughters had good udder conformation and were milky so their calves grew like weeds. My particular personal gripe is the decline in udder conformation since I started keeping Dexters in the 1980's. As one judge used to describe them, there are too many "Tesco shopping bags" about.

[Saffy]

I don't think it is just bulls that are being kept when they should go for beef. All too often people assume that every female should be kept for breeding and this really isn't the case. Anybody that keeps every female without any thought for selection must realise that they are in effect keeping anything and that the standard of the herd will deteriorate.

It is important to look at what is being bred on your farm and before you put a maiden heifer in calf look at her and decide - would I really want to go out and buy that heifer and add her to my herd? If the answer isn't a resounding yes, she should without doubt go in the freezer.

Stephanie

[Mark Bowles]

Louise, you will be pleased to know that the linear classification is for a dual purpose animal, the status of the dexter, and up to 40% of the animals score is from the mammary. This percentage, which i believe is slightly higher than the amount taken into consideration in the showring during judging, will ensure the dexter stays dual purpose.