Back on the high horse

[robin walker]

Back on my high horse .
It is now time that those with Dexters recognised that there is only one type of Dexter breeder and that is those with pure genetic animals , if you have Dexters and are crossing with anything other than pure Dexter you are breeding a commercial beef animal you are not breeding one of the Dexter breed.
Now for those of us with pure Dexter's we must get our act together , we are selling pure Dexter quality females at ridiculous prices , most of these animals are being bought up as a very inexpensive suckler to be crossed with other breeds . I don't mind if you wish to buy a pure Dexter and wish to cross but I would like those who do pay a decent price .
If you were a buyer of any other breed purchasing sucklers your price would be near double .
As pure Dexter breeders we should not allow ourselves to be treated otherwise . If it takes us to reduce our available females until this is rectified and the prices increase,s then I think we must do so. Then we may get paid for pure Dexter beef and not have it confused with its falsified cousin .

[victorfirst]

Here Here well said. Lets make this little cow pay

[Rob R]

The solution, to the beef problem at least, is surely to encourage buyers to only buy certified Dexter beef. Sadly I don't think the breeding females issue will be solved until breeders stop selling to smallholders/people new to cattle. The initial prices may be good but the subsequent sales drive the price down. Perhaps the best thing would be for sellers to offer a return service for breeding stock, should the buyers find they can't cope.

[Saffy]

I don't think it is just the re selling of the ones sold to newbies....that would be a fairly small number. I believe it is also indiscriminate breeding from inferior animals to any bull that happens to be fertile by people that haven't yet learnt or taken the time to learn about conformation of a quality cow. Sometimes these people have had dexters quite a time. This is almost always followed by the keeping of every female that they breed, so the price is driven down because the base quality of the Dexter is not going up.

In other words if the conformation isn't good...don't breed from it ....eat it! They all taste good and are worth the same price for beef, so where is the problem?

I enjoy a good rant in the morning...grumpy old woman syndrome!!!

Stephanie

[Rob R]

Whilst I don't disagree that far too many bulls are kept entire & bred from, I think you'd be surprised as to how many resales there are. Animals of poor confirmation *should* fetch a lower price, as that is their worth as a breeding animal. This would not affect the price of quality stock, whereas resales do, because buyers have paid a quality price and then find they can't keep them for whatever reason and only then are quality animals going for less than they should as they sell them on at a loss. They are stuck between a rock & a hard place, as few people who have bought good quality animals for breeding want to send them for meat but they can't afford to keep them forever until a buyer comes along at the price they paid.

Breeders don't have any control over lower quality stock being bred (which tend to be the best animals for crossing, so this outlet should be encouraged) but they do have control over the heifers they sell. Once you've sold an animal on, the subsequent price is out of your hands, unless you are the buyer. Offering to buy them back is not only sensible to prevent your prefix being associated with poor prices but it is also a guarantee of the value you place on your animals and shows that you're breeding them for a purpose & not having to dispose of them at the end of the year.

[Kelvin and Lottie James]

I take exception to the reference to smallholders. We are smallholders and are doing very well with our Dexters, thank you. We show and sell some stock, but also eat any which we consider not good enough to breed from.
Lottie James
Sedgefen Dexters

[Rob R]

I didn't say exclusively smallholders (I was a smallholder myself for many years of Dexter keeping), but smallholders who are new to cattle. You hear so many times that Dexters are a good breed to start with as a cattle keeper, but I don't think that is necessarily true. If people buy Dexters because they expect them to be easier to keep than larger breeds, they end up being disappointed. It takes the same amount of skill to keep Dexters as others breeds, but it takes a bit more fencing.

[Tim Watson]

......breeders stop selling to smallholders/people new to cattle.

WHAT!?

On the basis of the above statement only someone who isn't a small holder and/or isn't new to cattle should be able to own them ie
Experienced cattle owning small holders
Experienced cattle owning farmers

Do we impose an acreage limit? If so what would you like it to be?
When is someone no longer 'new to cattle'? How many years experience would you like that to be and with what breeds - only Dexters? If someone doesn't have cattle then how would they get experience? Perhaps some work shadowing of an experienced cattle person? But who is to say whether they are a good cattle person or not?

I think that what we should do is to make the DCS responsible for who owns all Dexters. Each persons land should be inspected - annually of course and the prospective owners should take a course with a written exam at the end - at least 2 hours with a multiple choice and then an essay or two to really demonstrate their depth of understanding. Only those with pass rates higher than 75% will be allowed to keep Dexters (and then only under the watch of an experienced cattle person - who have to pass with 90% and above, and whose grandparents were cattle farmers - for the first year - their probationary ownership period). All Dexter owners will be required to take new courses annually in a continuing professional development system - proven to be well worthwhile by some many professions.

We can do all that and then we will still only be able to sell at the price the market will bear, whatever that is at the time of sale.

I agree completely with your position on animals selling too low and your comments about crossbred beef but unless you have a lot of data demonstrating that the market price is being eroded by smallholders and those new to cattle I think you may, perhaps, be misguided at directing the fault in that direction.

You may have guessed by now I meet both those criteria!

[Rob R]

You're quite right Tim, it would be ridiculous to have exams etc to decide who can keep cattle. Much better to just go with my suggestion for breeders to take back cattle from buyers who find they have overstretched themselves, to prevent their quality cattle being sold on too cheaply.

[robin walker]

When you really think about it , the breed is getting in a mess , the majority of what's being sold as Dexter beef may have partly Dexter but it's crossed so no matter what you say it ain't.
Other breeders are using Dexter cows as surrogate mothers because they do a better job than a their own breed and also because they are buying the Dexter for quarter the price
Now jump up and down . We need a controlled body to get a grip to organise throughout the country pedigree registered Dexter sales , it could be the Society ? , before being accepted for sale they require to be inspected and vetted , you may have to be a paid up member of the society to sell and I think even buy .
Any other Dexter cattle are just basic beef and keepers could do what they like apart from calling them Dexters .
Pedigree registered cows should be selling for at least double they are at present , unless we as pedigree breeders stop shouting and doing something it's only going to get worse .
We now require to be very hard and serious if we are to raise the profile of pure Dexter beef and reach the levels this should be selling at. If the buying prices are raised I think those we don't want to purchase will be eradicated
It may not be Wagyu which sells for £7500.00 a carcass , but we are up there as some of the best beef in the country . It's marketing also that makes this breed successful .
The previous reply has some of the right lines but I think to minimise acreage etc and minimum herds I don't think is fair and sitting an exam i don't think is feasible , who says who filled it in .
I am quality farm assured and I am inspected to what breed i am breeding and that they are what they say they are every year before I get future cover . All pedigree breeders need to talk to each other , we know whose breeding good cattle .

[Rob R]

If the buying prices are raised I think those we don't want to purchase will be eradicated

Could you expand upon what that would mean Robin? I don't quite understand.

If we don't want to purchase them we don't buy them, whatever the price. Low prices only happen when people bid and the seller accepts the price offered. Low prices haven't prevented too many stock being produced, so how would increasing the price achieve this?

[Tim Watson]

What about approaching everyone who has a pedigree dexter for sale on the site and get them to increase their price by the same amount to a price that is deemed acceptable?

[robin walker]

Hi Rob
Many buyers of Dexters are those who have just purchased a premise which has a few acres attached , because they have this land they decide to buy a few animals , because of low priced Dexters they are appealing . Let's face it you can buy a Dexter less than a pedigree poodle puppy .
If Dexter prices reached the level I was talking about I don't think buyers like that would pay the money .
I totally agree the sellers are accepting silly prices and I know it would be hard but unless breeders start taking them home refusing to take the low price we will never acquire the increase prices .
My friends with Wagyu in the marketing they have done know they can achieve their massive carcass price . However they are going to cross with other breeds knowing that because it is crossed they will only achieve half the price , these would not be called Wagyu but they are happy with that knowing that doing this keeps the pure Wagyu in shorter supply hence creating the demand for the pure beef .
The Dexter Society have their stickers which you buy and attach to your beef but who inspects or monitors the beast having these stickers attached ?.
This is where we require to be making sure those buying beef are buying our pure beef , and that if it is crossed at all it is not .
I think you will find , just say a Dexter crossed with an Angus I would take bet it is not being sold as Angus but it will be called Dexter beef when in fact it is not , this is what we need to get over that they can't do this .
In the bulletin a few years ago they published buying prices for cows , heifers , cows in calf etc
Correct me if I am wrong a few years on I don't think they have changed , time it had .
Hope I have made things a little clearer ?.

[Rob R]

Clearer, yes, thank you Robin. We can talk about theories as to how we increase the prices until the cows come home but the trouble is that most of the solutions amount to price fixing, which is difficult to enforce. Perhaps better to ask the breeders that are selling 'too low' why they are accepting lower prices and address the issues that arise from there.

Regarding what you said about breeders doing something, rather than shouting about it, how about this for an idea; if you see a Dexter being sold too cheaply, that is not quite up to your standard for breeding, buy it and beef it (as Dexter if it is pure, or beef if it is not), problem solved. If it is up to your standard for breeding, buy it, mark it up, and sell on. It would only take a handful of breeders around the country to do this for a few years & really make a massive difference to the breed.

[Rob R]

I just thought I'd check out prices to see what we are up against, and here are the results from this site;

Black Bulls x 15 (8 with prices; 2006 x 1, 2007 x 1, 2010 x 2, 2011 x 1, 2012 x 2, 2013 x 1)
av £818.75 (range £350 - 1650)
Red Bulls x 2 (2010 & 2013) av £762.50 (range £675 - 850)
Dun Bulls x 3 (2005, 2010 (BN), 2011) - av £816.67 (range £650 - 800)

Steers
10 ads, 6 with prices
28 + animals (2010 x 5, 2011 x 2, 2012 x 3+, 2013 x 2) - av £478.85 (range £325 - 600)

Black heifers x 13 (9 with prices; 2011 x 4, 2012 x 5) - av £466.67 (range £325 - 650)
Red heifers x 3 (2 with prices; 2011 & 2012) - av £450.00 (range £400 - 500)
Dun heifers x 3 (2 with prices; 2011 & 2013) both £650

Black cows x 16 (12 with prices; 2004 x 4, 2006 x 1, 2007 x 1, 2009 x 3, 2010 x 3) - av £644.58 (range £350 - 800)
Red cows x 7 (2006 x 1, 2007 x 1, 2008 x 3, 2009 x 2) - av £542.86 (range £450 - 600)
Red cows with calf x 4 (2004 x 2, 2009 x 1, 2010 x 1) -av £620 (range £430 - 750)
Red cow with twins (2010) £950