Dear All,
Yesterday was a very big day for us. With a huge amount of help from lots of people along the way - Beryl, Philippa and especially Stephanie and Chris I went to Bunksland to select two weaned heifers for the start of our herd. We ended up with Meadow Pipit (on the left) who is 14months old and Piapiac (on the right) who is 8 months old. They arrived calmly and just walked into the barn with none of the issues that I had expected - perhaps Beryl was there with them!
I cannot tell you how fantastic this is - something that we have dreamed of for so many years and to be starting with Woodmagic's is just that extra bit special.
Not surprisingly they have had plenty of visitors peering quietly in over the gate and they remain calm around us which is very reassuring.
Thanks to everyone for their help both physically and through the forum.
Yes Tim, congratulations on your first Dexters and particularly on their pedigrees! The addiction is much worse than most suppose or admit. I began wanting a source of milk for the family in the early 1980's, and then the milk cow had to keep a heifer for company, then there were two cows, and a bull was needed as AI was not too reliable.
I now have 17 females (Dexters that is!) having owned seven generations of some lines.
Do enjoy every aspect of owning and breeding them, be prepared for some highs and lows, try to have some aims in what you are doing with them but do not be too surprised if you have a few changes in direction along the way.
Happy Dextering.
Duncan
Duncan MacIntyre
Burnside Dexters 00316
Burnside
Ascog
Isle of Bute
Well done Tim,
I knew it wouldn't be too long before you started your own herd. I hope you get as much pleasure as we have had, but it is not all plain sailing. There will no doubt be a few down sides, but the good times make it all worthwhile.
Kelvin
They are both coming on very well. The older one, Meadow Pipit is much more at ease with me than the younger one, Piapiac (so hard to pronounce it immediately got shortened to Pia) who still shies away most of the time although will allow ears to be scratched when she has her head in the feed bucket.
Pipit is happy to have her head scratched and will stand beside me while I do so. If I go in there outside food time she generally comes over to me for a tickle. She doesn't always get one as I want it to be me that calls the tune rather than her expecting/demanding it. While she is only about 13 months old it isn't too bad but if she comes over for a bit of TLC when she is fully grown I want it to be on my terms not hers!! She is happy enough for me to scratch her pretty much all over which is how I discovered her supernumery teat.
A quick email to Duncan and my concerns were settled so I will show it to our vet when they come to TB test in May.
Thanks to Stephanie (who brought it to my attention) we managed to get a 1 yr old unused crush (still with the IAE delivery labels on it) so my next task is to get this in a sensible location so that I can make a little race to get the girls in and out, hopefully single handed. This will help me with the halter training as well. We tried a pony headcoller but the buckles are so noisy that they both went to the back of the barn with a very 'you CANNOT be serious' look. Whilst Pia is so timid around me I don't want to make backward steps with her by wrestling with Pipit to get a headcollar on. I will tempt them into the crush with juicy hay and goodies and then do it that way I think (I can just hear the experienced hands chuckling in the distance). I have read with interest the recent 'Leading' string on the forum and will try a noose as well.
When the race is done I will start to teach them about electric fence as well as it is a small yard and I can easily run some white tape across to give them a bit of a zap and get them used to it. That way when I turn them out I can cordon off parts of the field or graze them in a strip up the field with a front and back line. Just waiting to see which field comes on best.
All of this has taken longer than I thought. When they arrived I had thought that I would have got this fgar and then turned them out after about three - four weeks but we are a way of that yet. I also need to let the grass come on a bit after the local farmers sheep have cropped it down nicely, which is good for the horses and the grass keep cheque but doesn't make for nice long grass for Dexters! As long as I try not to make the same mistake next year........
They are being fed hay at the moment with suckler cow rolls (Beryl insisted). They started off on haylage because we had plenty in for the horses but all the best haylage has gone and the last bale I opened was too wet for the horses so I thought the cows would have it but they weren't too happy with it either. Its about to go in the polytunnel to dry out some more as, where it has dried, they are OK with it and it still smells sweet rather than that nast ammonia/sick smell you get from bad haylage. When it was wet they were certainly producing much runnier pats and I needed to straw up more frequently so it obvioucsly wasn't to their liking.
