York Rare Breeds Show & Sale - 4/5th October 2013

[victorfirst]

Not sure if this is the thread placement, but have any of you thought of a cooperative to market your beef to more exclusive retailers/butchers the likes of Marks and Spencers not Asda.
Alot of the public are now more aware of were their food comes from and are less price conscious.
Dexters need marketed ,like the quality product they are.

[Jac]

Not sure if this is the thread placement, but have any of you thought of a cooperative to market your beef to more exclusive retailers/butchers the likes of Marks and Spencers not Asda.
Alot of the public are now more aware of were their food comes from and are less price conscious.
Dexters need marketed ,like the quality product they are.

Hi there!

There are not the numbers available and consistency is not uniform throughout the breed. Supermarkets are really fussy and the breed comes in all shapes and sizes.

[TomGDexters]

Jac

If a standard of cattle was introduced and could be agreed on I don't see why such an idea couldn't work, surely with other schemes such as the Angus named sired schemes there must be massive cattle variation????

Tom

[ann]

I believe both the following places take culls, I have certainly sent cull cows to Jewitts and I sent a bull into Dawn meats. Jewitts are a bit wary of taking dexters as they have had a few negative responses from dexter owners who have not been realistic regarding how much their cull's are worth. However if you are in their collecting area they will pick up from you if you can cope with their big transporters.
J A Jewitt (Meat) Ltd
Low House Farm
Spennymoor
County Durham DL16 7QD
Tel:  01388 814918

Dawn Meats Carnaby
Industrial Estate, Lancaster Road, Carnaby Phone : 01262 607700 http://www.dawnmeats.com
Dawn meats you have to deliver into.
I don't think either place would be interested in very small dexters.

I wonder if this info might be useful under a different heading, maybe we could run a list of places people can take culls, instead of sending them to auction, at least you know where they are going if you send them direct.

what do other people think should we post this and any other places under a new heading?

[Rob R]

Dexters are the smallest breed of British cattle. A cow should weigh about 350kg. How do you get a carcase of 25okg from a 350kg liveweight animal - answer is you can't. The only way to keep dexters true to their qualities is to maintain the small size. The only way to maintain the economics of it all is to cash in on the superior quality of the beef and charge a considerable premium. My steers are currently killing at about 125kg deadweight. I can split the carcase into 8 boxes of even mix of cuts, price £100. Cost of killing, butchering and transport about £300. This was the basis of my decision not to sell heifers at Carlise under £800-£300 ie £500. I sold 3 at £500 and the last at £490. If the £490 had been for the first in the ring it would have been unsold.

Please do not spoil Dexter beef by breeding Dexters bigger and bigger.

Just a thought; I've been mulling over these figures Duncan, and I don't think your pricing represents a considerable premium, it sounds about in line with what supermarkets are charging (£10 per kg ish) for the standard [ie not premium nor basic] range beef. The prices, too, sound about right - £500 - £200 for the breeders effort leaves a £300 cost to rear the animal with. Based on that you need to sell 64 animals a year to make a minimum wage of £12,620 from cattle alone. However, as you're factoring in the cost of transport (plus commission etc) on the beef price and not on the live price, are you not, perhaps, still selling yourself a bit short at £500?

I also learned, from reading the small print, that you can request that the seller pays the transfer fees when bought at auction, so it all adds up. (I didn't have the heart to request this this time though, as it didn't seem fair, given the prices).

[Rob R]

what do other people think should we post this and any other places under a new heading?

Definitely, and if it can be made [by Mark?] to stay at the top of the discussion board it'll be easy to find in the future.

[Jac]

Jac

If a standard of cattle was introduced and could be agreed on I don't see why such an idea couldn't work, surely with other schemes such as the Angus named sired schemes there must be massive cattle variation????

Tom

Trying to get Dexter breeders to work together is like herding cats. Try suggesting that you are going to introduce a ban on accepting short legged cattle into the herd book.........
I'm not anti anything - each to his own.

[TomGDexters]

Jac

I really want to argue with you on this one, but I sense you might be right!!!!! From point of view though if I could find other breeders within say 50 miles of us (we are in south yorks) it is something I would consider, but im not sure how much support would be around?

Tom

[Rob R]

Not sure if this is the thread placement, but have any of you thought of a cooperative to market your beef to more exclusive retailers/butchers the likes of Marks and Spencers not Asda.
Alot of the public are now more aware of were their food comes from and are less price conscious.
Dexters need marketed ,like the quality product they are.

Hi there!

There are not the numbers available and consistency is not uniform throughout the breed. Supermarkets are really fussy and the breed comes in all shapes and sizes.

Well said - the reluctance of the trade to use Dexters is not, IMO, the size, but the huge variability that exists, that's the long and the short of it [sorry, couldn't resist]. You can say Dexter to a butcher and he doesn't know whether to expect an 80kg small dwarf or a 240kg big beast. And supermarkets reject on the tiniest of inconsistencies.

[ann]

(Re not registering short's)
It might go down better at the AGM in Scotland, not many shorts up there

joking apart I really don't know why people still use short legged bulls, I haven't used a short legged bull for over 25 years but I do have the great grandaughter of a short cow and going back 4 gen all the ofspring has been by non short bulls and I'm still getting 50% shorts, from that family group, so even if we never registered another short legged bull it will take many generations to breed it out.

[Jac]

what do other people think should we post this and any other places under a new heading?

Definitely, and if it can be made [by Mark?] to stay at the top of the discussion board it'll be easy to find in the future.

I think we should have a national list of these type of places in the members area on the DCS web site under Beef and if they could publish an update of the £/kg d/w prices offered at each that would be even better. Don't want much do I? Oh, almost forgot - a blacklist of those who keep you waiting for your money.

[Rob R]

(Re not registering short's)
It might go down better at the AGM in Scotland, not many shorts up there

joking apart I really don't know why people still use short legged bulls, I haven't used a short legged bull for over 25 years but I do have the great grandaughter of a short cow and going back 4 gen all the ofspring has been by non short bulls and I'm still getting 50% shorts, from that family group, so even if we never registered another short legged bull it will take many generations to breed it out.

Now I'm confused [by what you mean] - if the cow is short she's always going to pass on the defective gene to half her offspring, so surely the solution would be not to breed from short bulls or cows...

[Jac]

(Re not registering short's)
It might go down better at the AGM in Scotland, not many shorts up there

joking apart I really don't know why people still use short legged bulls, I haven't used a short legged bull for over 25 years but I do have the great grandaughter of a short cow and going back 4 gen all the ofspring has been by non short bulls and I'm still getting 50% shorts, from that family group, so even if we never registered another short legged bull it will take many generations to breed it out.

Now I'm confused [by what you mean] - if the cow is short she's always going to pass on the defective gene to half her offspring, so surely the solution would be not to breed from short bulls or cows...

Now I am confused - if the cow is short she is not going to pass on the defective gene if she was mated to a non-short and the resulting offspring was non-short. That is even more confusing what I meant was, if the cow is short and she was mated to a non-short the resulting offspring if it was a non-short would not carry her defective gene.

[Rob R]

(Re not registering short's)
It might go down better at the AGM in Scotland, not many shorts up there

joking apart I really don't know why people still use short legged bulls, I haven't used a short legged bull for over 25 years but I do have the great grandaughter of a short cow and going back 4 gen all the ofspring has been by non short bulls and I'm still getting 50% shorts, from that family group, so even if we never registered another short legged bull it will take many generations to breed it out.

Now I'm confused [by what you mean] - if the cow is short she's always going to pass on the defective gene to half her offspring, so surely the solution would be not to breed from short bulls or cows...

Now I am confused - if the cow is short she is not going to pass on the defective gene if she was mated to a non-short and the resulting offspring was non-short. That is even more confusing what I meant was, if the cow is short and she was mated to a non-short the resulting offspring if it was a non-short would not carry her defective gene.

Not if it were non-short, no, but 50% are short, as you would expect it to be by hereditary principles...

(I liked it better when we used to call non-shorts long legged )

[ann]

Now I'm confused [by what you mean] - if the cow is short she's always going to pass on the defective gene to half her offspring, so surely the solution would be not to breed from short bulls or cows...

Your probably right, but i have seen non shorts the same size as these girls, and
Because I love this particular line and non are the small shorts' this is where it gets very confusing, i have kept the line going, although i do get short heifers from this line, most of the steers are non short and turn out very beefy.

I hope that makes sense. 4 gen of shorts all sires have been non shorts.