Where dexters lead others follow!

[Jac]

if I had a good, productive animal that got a poor score, I certainly would cull it for that reason alone.

That says something then doesn't it? Productive animals can be 'poor'.

[Rob R]

if I had a good, productive animal that got a poor score, I certainly would cull it for that reason alone.

That says something then doesn't it? Productive animals can be 'poor'.

I don't know whether that is true, but the other way round, certainly; the offspring of high scoring parents can be poor.

[monica a waltho]

What is a good productive animal? And would you really cull it for a poor score ?

Do Good productive cows get poor scores ??

Out of curiosity how many people who have done L A have changed there mind on what they thought were their best cows ??

I think LA is a very good thing just havent got round to it myself think perhaps we should be able to go direct to Holstein UK to arrange visit going by some of Duncans comments. It may help owners and help the society reducing their admin time and saving money too. I think having to book just as animals have calved and you can only have animals done that you have booked may be a little off putting perhaps you should be able to substitue an animal on the day if something has happened to one booked in. Small tweeks but on the whole it seems very reasonably priced. Perhaps doing at shows and sales if enough people were interested.

[Saffy]

I don't know whether that is true, but the other way round, certainly; the offspring of high scoring parents can be poor.

I can understand getting a throw back to something slightly substandard - but if two high scoring animals are mated it seems wrong that you would get a very bad animal, were they both high scoring Rob or just one?

I ask because years ago my Dad had a top dairy herd but he participated in The DPTS scheme - Dairy Progeny Testing Scheme. So we put several randomly selected cows and heifers to several randomly selected unproven new bulls every year. This was - in my opinion entirely altruistic on my Dads part!!!!The results were not great, it was rare that we got a decent heifer this way but by heck we got some cr*p! Shocking feet, bad udders, badly shaped backs, bad temperaments. Even from some Excellent cows. This is because if only half of the genes are rubbish - that seems to be the bit that shows up the best!

Stephanie

[Rob R]

What is a good productive animal? And would you really cull it for a poor score ?

Do Good productive cows get poor scores ??

Out of curiosity how many people who have done L A have changed there mind on what they thought were their best cows ??

Those are the sorts of questions I think need answering in the form of articles etc. It requires measurements to be taken on other factors that members can relate to their own herds so they can really appreciate the value of it better.

I don't think the upfront cost is what puts most people off, as has been said above, £30 is next to nothing (neither is £72, really), but the nuisance value is a problem, especially if you don't have hard standing available or suitable facilities to contain and move cattle around easily. Many people just have a field and have to borrow equipment, extra hands etc. If you can only classify some of the cows on that visit (like you say, no subs) it can seem like an unnecessary pain in the backside.

These aren't easy problems for the society to tackle & it may well be valuable, but you have to really want to do it, so any attempt to promote it needs to make people want to do it enough to justify the effort, if that makes sense?

[Saffy]

Out of curiosity how many people who have done L A have changed there mind on what they thought were their best cows ??

One of the first times we LA'd our dairy herd back in the 70's, I changed my mind about which was the best cow. We had a cow that as the herdswomen...all be it a teenager and wet behind the ears...her big coarse teats were all I could see. I wrote her off as ugly. When the assessor scored her at VG89, I nearly dropped dead. He patiently went through it. Perfect shaped body, perfect top line, perfect legs and feet, near perfect udder and teat placement... big coarse teats, fabulous temperament, fabulous walk! I was stunned. She had already given over 50 tons of milk and was made Elite becoming the first Elite cow in the county of Monmouthshire. So in answer to your question Monica, sometimes, even when you think you have been brought up to judge a cow LA has something going for it and I doubt I am the only person to have my eyes opened like that.

Stephanie

[Rob R]

I don't know whether that is true, but the other way round, certainly; the offspring of high scoring parents can be poor.

I can understand getting a throw back to something slightly substandard - but if two high scoring animals are mated it seems wrong that you would get a very bad animal, were they both high scoring Rob or just one?

I ask because years ago my Dad had a top dairy herd but he participated in The DPTS scheme - Dairy Progeny Testing Scheme. So we put several randomly selected cows and heifers to several randomly selected unproven new bulls every year. This was - in my opinion entirely altruistic on my Dads part!!!!The results were not great, it was rare that we got a decent heifer this way but by heck we got some cr*p! Shocking feet, bad udders, badly shaped backs, bad temperaments. Even from some Excellent cows. This is because if only half of the genes are rubbish - that seems to be the bit that shows up the best!

Stephanie

I have very limited knowledge of LA'd cattle so I don't want to put too much emphasis on a single animal but a VG87/EX91 with no vigour. I guess you can't assess vigour so I am thinking more of the factors/traits that it doesn't measure here. Do the offspring of higher scoring animals have measurably better fertility, longevity, liveability etc when compared to their lower scoring herd mates? (I think of 'breed character' being doing alright licking moss off a rock on the west coast of Ireland for the Dexter). There are genetic profiling now that gives scores for longevity, feed intake and production, etc. do you happen to know how closely they correlate with the linear assessments? I ask because a lot of the nuisance value of linear could be avoided, say, if a genetic sample was taken by a vet at TB time. It's the old pheno/geno question.

[Saffy]

I have very limited knowledge of LA'd cattle so I don't want to put too much emphasis on a single animal but a VG87/EX91 with no vigour. I guess you can't assess vigour so I am thinking more of the factors/traits that it doesn't measure here.

Whilst you can't assess vigour, I think it shows to some extent in the way they hold themselves - walk and whether or not they are in blooming condition. (I recently LA'd an old cow I had just bought, she had a few close calls thanks to an underlying nerve problem to her stomach and nearly met her maker a couple of times instead of the classifier before the vet found out why she was blowing, so her condition had dropped drastically and it affected her score. This I believe would be the same for a cow with poor vigour as it would probably be a poor doer. It should get a lower score for having poorer body condition and not standing proudly.)

Stephanie

[Jac]

It seems to me linear scoring does not need to be done by an independent assessor if you know the figures Take for example the measurements contained here

http://ukcows.com/holsteinuk/publicweb/ ... ssment.pdf

If we have a look at the explanation from the DCS there are no figures apart from height

http://www.dextercattle.co.uk/breed-inf ... 282526.pdf

Can anyone enlighten me?

[Rob R]

I have very limited knowledge of LA'd cattle so I don't want to put too much emphasis on a single animal but a VG87/EX91 with no vigour. I guess you can't assess vigour so I am thinking more of the factors/traits that it doesn't measure here.

Whilst you can't assess vigour, I think it shows to some extent in the way they hold themselves - walk and whether or not they are in blooming condition. (I recently LA'd an old cow I had just bought, she had a few close calls thanks to an underlying nerve problem to her stomach and nearly met her maker a couple of times instead of the classifier before the vet found out why she was blowing, so her condition had dropped drastically and it affected her score. This I believe would be the same for a cow with poor vigour as it would probably be a poor doer. It should get a lower score for having poorer body condition and not standing proudly.)

Stephanie

Yes, I'm talking about offspring though, the majority that are never assessed. To the average Dexter keeper this is where the value of it must shine through and demonstrate a clear advantage, IMO, especially as many Dexter keepers are relatively short term.

[Rob R]

It seems to me linear scoring does not need to be done by an independent assessor if you know the figures Take for example the measurements contained here

http://ukcows.com/holsteinuk/publicweb/ ... ssment.pdf

If we have a look on the explanation from the DCS there are no figures apart from height

http://www.dextercattle.co.uk/breed-inf ... 282526.pdf

Can anyone enlighten me?

Yes, that has jogged my memory of carrying out linears on dairy cows, back in my student days...

Can't help thinking that Holsteins are a lot easier/there's better uptake simply because they're in at least twice a day.

[Louisa Gidney]

I think the Ungulate Paradox is relevant to Rob's comment about geno/phenotype. It's discussed at (tedious) length in my thesis with regard to the ancient selection decisions that turned the aurochs into the small prehistoric domestic cattle of Dexter size range. This was articulated by Valerius Geist with regard to wild sheep but the principle holds for all wild ungulates:
Body and horn size, age at sexual maturation, behavioural vigour, as well as life expectancy, depend on the quality of a sheep population. The larger and finer the animals, the more vigorous the rams and the more fertile the females, the shorter is their life expectancy. There is an apparent paradox that the "better" the sheep the quicker they die.
Basically, if you select, as our ancestors did, FOR longevity the corollary is that you select AGAINST large and fine. The Holstein is a case in point of the reverse. I would therefore suggest that anyone interested in breeding for longevity might wish to be cautious of LA.
Even the father of Eugenics (senior moment, can't think of his name!) was aware that the large & fine was not always the most efficient choice for particular situations.

[Tim Watson]

I have read this thread with interest and realise that most of the posters, if not all, are working on a higher plane than I when it comes to matters bovine.
However, just a couple of things that strike me:-
1) I have a letter from DCS stating the cost is £72.00 so not sure where the £30 comes from?
2) What happens if in time the scoring on the traits is changed? that would mean that what was an EX89 for example is not any longer?
3) This is a qualitative exercise in that it is down to the judgement of the assessor on the day and, humans being what they are, are rarely consistent in repeated exercises. A case in point is one LA assessor is a bit of a one with the ladies and it is thought that the reaction he gets or does not get may affect the scoring. What happens if he has a raging headache and is going down with the flu?
4) I think there is a risk if the very experienced to over think this. What needs to be done is to look at this from the other end of the telescope - the less experienced end and work out what needs to be done to get the smaller user onboard.

I may be example of what is being talked about.
We got Dexters in early 2010 - from Beryl - and now have 15 either of Woodmagic (ie bred by Beryl) or 100 % WM lineage with our herd name ie bred by out of WM cow and bull. The exception is two calves we have from in calf WM cows which we bought in, served by a non registered bull by the vendor.
This I am sure qualifies us as novice and I know I am a hobby farmer as we both have full time jobs.
I admire what Beryl did and am trying to continue the WM line as best I can but know that time is running out and we will have to bring in a non WM bull at some point soon to move forward.
We occasionally put one of them in the freezer but only if they have to be culled otherwise I sell on the hoof out the field as its easier and I have never had an issue getting the price I wanted.
Do we LA or not?
This year everything is 100% WM bred. We have had two calves both bull calves. When are the cows due? Sadly despite watching, the bull didn't tell us, and we are down to estimation. We have four left to calf so when do I book the assessor for?
I am sure that to the very experienced there will be things above that may raise an eyebrow but I think that we are probably not that far off a typical smallholder/hobbyharmer type owner that makes up the vast majority of Dexter owners.
If we are not leaping on the bandwagon then perhaps that explains why others are not?

[Louisa Gidney]

I was, of course, thinking of Francis Galton and the quote is about stamina and adaptation to local conditions not being linked to outward appearance with the "shabby-looking, sickly-looking and puny" having advantage over "the most shapely, biggest and much haler".
This also works with Soay sheep, a paper published in 2008 showed that the "runts" with scurred horns had higher survivability in the periodic population crashes on Hirta.

[Jac]

I have read this thread with interest and realise that most of the posters, if not all, are working on a higher plane than I when it comes to matters bovine.
However, just a couple of things that strike me:-
1) I have a letter from DCS stating the cost is £72.00 so not sure where the £30 comes from?
2) What happens if in time the scoring on the traits is changed? that would mean that what was an EX89 for example is not any longer?
3) This is a qualitative exercise in that it is down to the judgement of the assessor on the day and, humans being what they are, are rarely consistent in repeated exercises. A case in point is one LA assessor is a bit of a one with the ladies and it is thought that the reaction he gets or does not get may affect the scoring. What happens if he has a raging headache and is going down with the flu?
4) I think there is a risk if the very experienced to over think this. What needs to be done is to look at this from the other end of the telescope - the less experienced end and work out what needs to be done to get the smaller user onboard.

I may be example of what is being talked about.
We got Dexters in early 2010 - from Beryl - and now have 15 either of Woodmagic (ie bred by Beryl) or 100 % WM lineage with our herd name ie bred by out of WM cow and bull. The exception is two calves we have from in calf WM cows which we bought in, served by a non registered bull by the vendor.
This I am sure qualifies us as novice and I know I am a hobby farmer as we both have full time jobs.
I admire what Beryl did and am trying to continue the WM line as best I can but know that time is running out and we will have to bring in a non WM bull at some point soon to move forward.
We occasionally put one of them in the freezer but only if they have to be culled otherwise I sell on the hoof out the field as its easier and I have never had an issue getting the price I wanted.
Do we LA or not?
This year everything is 100% WM bred. We have had two calves both bull calves. When are the cows due? Sadly despite watching, the bull didn't tell us, and we are down to estimation. We have four left to calf so when do I book the assessor for?
I am sure that to the very experienced there will be things above that may raise an eyebrow but I think that we are probably not that far off a typical smallholder/hobbyharmer type owner that makes up the vast majority of Dexter owners.
If we are not leaping on the bandwagon then perhaps that explains why others are not?

I think the fundamental questions you need to ask yourself are:

" Where am I going with my herd?" and "What do I hope to achieve?" If you don't know or haven't yet decided then LA is not for you.