No Dexters have 100% Complete Pedigrees back to Dublin

[JamsHundred]

As soon as the herdbooks are all uploaded and the so-called "holes" in the pedigrees filled, then someone else will have done the work for you as you seem to want.

*I* am not going to make the job easier for you for I owe you nothing and none of your provocation or deceit will tempt me to cooperate. Your tricks are older than books. Go find them yourself, I am not going to make it easier for you You certainly seem to have enough time on your hands.

Judy

[JamsHundred]

Louisa,

I have a skull for which I am hopefully having postpartum DNA taken from the teeth. I am 99.5 per cent sure I know the animal and have a photo. I wonder if I could impose on you to look at the two and tell me if I am correct that the skull matches the photo?

I will send them via email and I attempted to inquire via instant message but could not get your user name to work.

Judy
JamsHundred@AOL.com

[Kirk- Cascade Herd US]

The records show that NO living Dexters today, descend entirely from the Dublin Herdbook #1 foundation animals. If one existed, you could give us a name.

Further, there are no Dexter breeders today that follow every word of the original 1900 Breed Standard. If there were such a breeder, you could give us a name.

[moomin]

I take exception to your statement that no breeder follows the 1900 herd book standard.
Best take a trip to the UK!!
Think you may have to eat your words or maybe your hat?
Di Smith,
Moomin Herd [established 1976]

[Louisa Gidney]

Judy, the skull certainly looks like a Dexter but I would not like say whether it was from the animal in the photo. Very difficult to judge just from pictures.

[Kirk- Cascade Herd US]

I love the excellent Moomin herd, but from the photos and data I've seen, the Moomin herd does NOT follow every word of the original Dexter Standard of 1900, because I've seen hornless Moomin animals and dun Moomin animals (neither are allowed by the 1900 standard).

Moomin Macduff is super terrific, but doesn't meet every word of the 1900 standard because he's hornless.



I still don't know of ANYONE who follows every word of the 1900 breed standard, I don't completely follow it myself.

[moomin]

Moomin Macduff was disbudded at 4 weeks old. He is genetically horned. I have all my calves disbudded as do most of the breeders here in the UK. I cannot cope with horns, much as I like the look of them. You cannot assume that a cow is genetically hornless if it has been disbudded.
I don't know whether you are aware but a polled animal has an entirely different head shape from a horned animal.
Please could you tell me the name of any dun animal I have bred? I have a dun on the farm which was a gift. I don't personally like duns. Are you getting mixed up between dun and red? I do have recessive reds.
I think you are assuming too much from looking at pictures!! Not wise to do that!

Di

[Kirk- Cascade Herd US]

There are 7 "Moomin" Duns in the pedigree database including Moomin Isadun, and Moomin Cuckoo Pint.

ALL Dexters including polled Dexters have "horned genetics". Two polled Dexters can give birth to a horned calf, proving that polled Dexters have horned genetics.

The polled gene simply interrupts horn growth, just like a hot iron interrupts horn growth.

This horned 4 year old Dexter has 2 polled parents and 4 polled grandparents. Obviously those polled animals have horn genetics that they passed to their offspring.



Polled Dexters have a wide variety of head shapes including looking very much like dehorned Dexters (I'll have to post some pictures later).

Now, let me repeat my highly accurate assertion that NOBODY is following every word of the original 1900 Dexter Breed Standard, certainly not the hornless Moomin herd, and NOBODY has any Dexters that trace 100% back to Dublin Herdbook #1.

[moomin]

I must correct my last post Moomin Macduff had his horns removed as an older bull by his owners Mr. and Mrs. Reed. They have a very small holding and found it was easier to manage animals without horns.

[moomin]

Thanks for reminding me about the duns. They didn't last long did they? They are quite popular with some breeders but I still don't like the colour. I prefer black.
Interestingly when slaughtered blacks have black tongues , reds have pink tongues and duns have light brown tongues.
If not sure about colour look at the tongue.

Kirk I think you are very confused about polled v horned Dexters. Cattle can be homozygous or heterozygous for polling. Suggest you look it up. I haven't got the time or the inclination to explain it to you.
I find it quite amusing that you refer to my Moomins as hornless just because they have been disbudded!
The sweeping statements you are making are really without foundation . Have you traced back via the herdbooks - not the database - and found no animals go back to 1900? I assume you have a full set of herd books so you can do this?
When James Hundred has finished her project, on which she is doing such sterling work and we should all be extremely grateful for, then we will know whether your statements are true or not.
Must go now, disbudding calves tomorrow!

[Duncan MacIntyre]

I suspect that we are doing Kirk a disservice if we assume he does not understand the difference between polled and dehorned. In his assertion that those who dehorn are not following the 1900 breed standard however he is looking at the physical similarity - neither polled nor dehorned cattle have horns. Horns are described in the breed standard. Therefore cattle without horns do not meet the standard.

I also have to say that all those so called "original population" individuals I have tried to trace back come to a stop somewhere along the line.

Clearly on both sides of the Atlantic there are very very few animals which come anywhere near qualifying as pure original traceable to anywhere near 1900 let alone the 1890 herd book. But there are some. The danger in trying to turn these into objects of worship is that the rest, the great majority, of Dexter cattle alive today become devalued, not necessarily in monetary terms but in people's minds.

We need to pay attention to the opinion of those who understand genetics and the effects of introgression, and how the effect is diluted with each successive generation. So by 8 generations down the line it is unlikely that there is as much as 1% of the introduced genetics present. The important thing is to select carefully against traits likely to have come from the introgression, such as increase in size.

At our genetics symposium in 2016, as yet totally unreported in any detail to anyone, I suggested that the limited numbers of Dexters identified as near as possible to 100% original should be used to produce bulls to be used carefully on the remaining population, to dilute any effects on introgression, rather than expect those assessed as "original" to form a newly identified section of the breed and all others to be thought less of and possibly inelligible for certain subsidies - for that is what will happen if certain individuals have their way, looking after their own interests rather than the wider good of the breed.

We also need to look to experts in breed conservation and who can spread their knowledge, and here I have in mind Prof Philip Sponenberg, who with Donald Bixby is the author of "Managing Breeds for a Secure Future". It explains that, just as introgression adds to the genetics of a breed, long periods of closed breeding leads to slow loss of genetic material, and unless this is renewed by additions the breed will eventually lose vigour. But all our council from 2015 should be aware of this from reading the book I presented to them at the 2015 AGM. I hope they have all read the book even if they have not seen the need to thank me for it or even acknowledge the gift.

Duncan

[Louisa Gidney]

Going rather further back than the C19th, I find it of greater interest that the indigenous British breeds, eg Highland, Welsh Black and Dexter, all show evidence of introgression, from mitochondrial DNA, from British aurochs, which have been extinct for over 3,000 years. This work was published after I'd observed an unexpected similarity between the morphology of Dexter and aurochs bones, despite the size difference.
I really can't get too bothered in defining the Dexter by the first herdbook. As an analogy, for my main sheep breed (Manx Loaghtan), the majority of the breeders on the Isle of Man are not interested in pedigree breeding but they hold the true foundation stock. Only when the breed was taken out of its original area to mainland England did pedigree recording assume importance to the new breeders, with a drift away from the type in the original environment. Much the same applies to Shetland sheep too. Dexters in America become a positively mind boggling concept in comparison.

[Kirk- Cascade Herd US]

Breeds can only become true breeds when they are isolated from others. When people take their livestock to an island or remote place, in that isolation, a true breed will develop over time from both environmental selection and farmer selection in isolation.

Alternatively, new breeds can be developed more artificially, by folks using more modern methods to isolate animals of a certain type (using fencing, and breed registry records).

Dexters did not and could not exist as a breed, until they were isolated from other breeds. Dexters only existed as a "type" that freely intermixed with other breeds before they were isolated. Dexters only became a breed in the late 1800's when they were isolated from others.

The formation of the registry, and the formalization of breed standards was key to inventing Dexters as a separate breed. If Dexters had been isolated on an island, no registry nor pedigree records would have been required to help keep them isolated. But since Dexters were in an area with many other breeds, the registry was a required form of isolation, required to develop the breed.


PS. Concerning horned genetics, there is a complex set of genetics involved in horns that define their placement, and length, and thickness, and angle, and curvature, and color. Both homozygous-polled and hetero-polled Dexters still have all those horned genetics. The polled gene is a simple on/off switch that interrupts horn growth, but all the horn descriptor genetics are still in place. So even homozygous polled Dexters definately still have horn genetics.

[PorcPrunus NL]

IMO it's important to show or lineair asses cattle.

That's what they do in the UK, the Moomin herd is a good example of breeding with the breed standard and showing Dexters. On a show everyone can see what you have bred. It's one of the most worthfull things in breeding, and people in UK are very aware of that.