Best Mini-Moo for Us?

Anianna

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Royd Wood said:
Anianna said:
My husband has threatened to pole my Dexter's if I get them! :(

One of the reasons we are going for a small breed is because he is intimidated by large animals. And horns. :rolleyes:

Well, that and I don't need the kind of milk production larger breeds produce.
You should consider Belted Galloway then as they are polled, will give you milk and are easy to work with - I have 3 here 2 of which are smaller than my blacks and duns oh and the meat is unbelievable -they do very well on just grass and hay
I will look into those, thanks.
 

thecatzpajamas

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Hi! I have owned many dexters, and the key to making sure you get a good one is to know your seller, get recommendations from other buyers, and research dexters online & in person so you know what to ask about, and you know what you like.

Horns - I consider them part of the beauty of the breed, and would only have them removed if the animal was overly agressive with them and you felt it was beyond training (never met a dexter like that). We find it convenient having the extra 'handle' when we need to move them or lead them. No animal i've ever owned has ever been outright agressive with their horns. at most they get irritated and will 'bump' you with them, enough to be annoying but not more than that. that is easily fixed with a little training where you teach them your personal boundary. takes no more than two 5 minute sessions. Dexters are smart, and docile, and will pick up training quickly & very willingly too, if you use grain, if you are consistent, and if you are always gentle & predictable to them. if you do decide to have them removed, PLEASE do it humanely. I've seen some terrible things, banding, saws, whatever people think will get it done. If they're a few months old, have them burned off, the vet can put them under with a simple shot & local pain shots to help block the pain of the burn. if they're older, have it surgically done, it's called cosmetic dehorning, and won't cost more than $150. they put the animal under & remove the horns surgically, then close up the wound with stitches. it is much much more humane than, for example, putting bands on & letting the animal suffer in agony until they fall off, or tying their head & sawing off each horn with a saw. both are horrifically painful, bloody, and will permanently damage your relationship with your animal. i've seen it all first hand it it is pure mutilation and the poor animal suffers beyond belief. (whew! stepping down off my soap box now....)

also, you can get polled dexters, but you need to make sure they are also excellent milkers in the genes as well. harder to find both.

feed - on a good irrigated field you should not have to feed them at all except some grain for handling purposes. for example, right now we use about 2 lbs of grain a day, and that is to milk 1 cow, and bring 3 in for daily brushing, fly spray etc. we could use less if we wanted, but depending on who's bringing them in, a couple of people on our place are more prone to spoiling the girls than others... LOL. anyway, use a high quality, low sugar, low corn complete mix. we have an irrigated pasture & need to use hay about 3 months out of the year. ( I live in sacramento valley CA, so we have mild winters). 16 bales (reg square kind....) a month for 4 animals is what we used last year during the frost months when the grass was dormant.

Dexters have a tendency to have copper deficiencies, and milking animals can get low in magnesium too. you can give them loose, free choice minerals or a good quality block that is always available to them. the costs for this are both minimal.

milk - If you can find a calf that's been hand raised by someone who milks the mama, that is ideal. the average good dexter will give you about a gallon & a half while you're calf sharing. that's not just her peak amount, that's the average for the 1st 6 months or so, then it goes down slowly from there. by 10-12 months lactation, we usually get 3/4 gal a day. our current milker has a 3 month old calf, we separate her at night & in the morning we get 1 1/2 gals. we only milk once a day for now, in a couple of months we'll separate her longer & switch to twice a day. this has always been plenty for our family of 6, along with a good amount of cream, usually 1-2 inches of cream at the top of a gallon glass jar. plenty to keep our butter needs going. we have the regular long legged dexters, 42". a friend down the road has the smaller, short legged dexter, closer to 36". we get the same amount of milk. the taller versions do eat a bit more, but not by much.

bulls - dexter bulls are not aggressive at all in my experience. I read somewhere that it was due to their low testosterone levels. i've met many a bull and as a rule they are respectful of fencing, mild tempered, non aggressive, and easily handled, especially when accustomed to daily contact. however they are bulls, and the best advice I ever got was to "hand feed him a little grain every day, brush him & talk to him so he likes & appreciates you. he'll be a wonderful animal, but don't turn your back on him, and don't get between him & his lady." AI is also a good option if you don't want to deal with bulls at all (too bad though, my little bull is my favorite animal on the place, hands down) but your local AI guy will probably not have dexter semen on hand, and you'll need to order online & have it shipped, which takes a lot of research so that you make sure you get quality semen. but no more research than you would put into buying a quality bull, so there you are.

looking back at your post, you said you wanted:

-dual purpose mini cattle (less that 4ft tall) - The standard guidelines for a Dexter are up to 42" tall. you can get some bigger ones, but they are outside the guidelines. we bought a larger one once, more like 48". she turned out to be a great milker, about 4 gallons a day for the first 4 months or so. great cow. she ate a lot though.... the meat is wonderful. any dexter owner will attest to that.

-low maintenance cost - short legged are the easiest to keep. you'll have to have a milking stanchion you can raise her up on though, because otherwise you'll be squatting on the ground trying to milk her. best stanchion i've seen was built out of steel (same friend down the road) and had a seat so she could just sit & milk. it was very strong & worked great. and you can't use a regular milk pail, you'll have to use a tray of some sort to fit under her. or, milk into a small bowl & dump it into a larger pot next to you as you milk.

-milk yield of at least 1 gallon per day and preferably not more than 5 gallons per day - that is exactly a dexter, although on the lower end. try to get a dexter from someone who has milked her or milked her mama, that will let you know if you're getting a dexter who has more milk. the above poster is right, not all dexters give the same amount of milk, and you have to buy one that has good milking genes. all dexters are dual purpose, but some are more dual than others. :)

-easy calving (I would prefer to intervene as little as possible) - dexters are known to be easy calvers, and great mothers.

-little expected veterinary care - depends on the animal, most animals are fine but you need to be sure and have them tested for all the usual things. have a vet look them over. keep your animal in a low stress or stress free envirnoment. for example, don't buy a cow and not her calf, she'll be stressed beyond belief by being in a new strange place, having to be trained to do new things (if she's not already used to milking) plus she'll try to escape & go find her baby. just buy the calf, you can sell it later. animals can easily develop any array of sicknesses from being overly stressed.

-gentle temperament is a plus - if you are buying an animal that has been handled by the owner, you are in luck and you'll have a great little dexter that will be everything you hoped for in behavior. if you buy one 'off the plains' from a large herd, it'll take some training & patience. however, our best milk cows we've gotten that way. start out with them in a smaller corral, and work with them every day. twice a day at first. after a few weeks when you're confident you can catch them & they'll let you walk up to them, put them in the bigger pasture. if you are introducing them to other cattle already in the field, let them sniff each other through the fence for a couple of hours before you throw them in there, or you'll have a battle while they determine who's boss.

Where are you located? if you are in CA, I can recommend some milking groups around where you can find some hand raised calves, and you can take a look at several so you get an idea of what you like. if you are in the northwest, or are willing to travel, I can recommend the ranch we bought our current group from (not milked but great animals that were easy to train for milking,) they are excellent animals, and the ranch owner is a well known, respected dexter breeder. just email me if you want names etc.) Otherwise, there are several dexter forums where you can find dexters for sale, along with the adca website, and pdca site as well.

I hope you do decide on a Dexter, they are wonderful sweet animals, the milk is delicious, and definitely worth the effort of owning a cow. good luck!
 

goodhors

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If you are buying registered Dexters, many details are listed on their paperwork. They are tested for the short-legged gene, so you know how to choose the opposite partner to get your desired animal. The colors are listed in the pedigree, with red being preferred, so their price is usually higher. To be registered, the calf has samples sent in to be matched genetically to the sire, to assure bloodlines are correct. Calf will be tattooed in both ears with green numbers to match their registration and RFID tag is listed on the paperwork too. Dexter Association wants everything to be VERY CLEAR to a possible buyer of registered animals, no surprises in breeding.

As mentioned, the polled Dexters are gaining ground with more bulls available AI, and good qualities passed on to calves.

I am quite "anti-horned" cattle, so learning about polled Dexters was good news to me. Those breeders I talked to did stress that keeping horned cattle requires more ground because each animal has a larger "personal space" they enforce with their horns during feeding. And you may have to deal with horn holes if they argue. Since my single Dexter was already dehorned, I didn't have to deal with horn issues. She still pushed the other steer calf around with her head, but he loved her anyway!

I would also suggest you get young animals if you can't find any broke to milk. Handle them daily, get them used to going up on a milking stand, held in the stanchion while being fed, having udder handled and washed LONG before she is ready to milk. Cattle LOVE a routine, so learning this young, doing it daily, will enforce it being normal when they are ready to milk.

The man I purchased from milked his Dexter, but they used a LOT of milk and he needed more than the gallon morning and night she gave. He crossed her with a Jersey, got a lovely cow that was larger, gave more milk to suit his needs. He did say the cross ate more and was visibly larger than the Dexters. He crossed the Jersey/Dexter cow back on the Dexter bull, with lovely calves that were more Dexter-like, smaller. He liked his cross being taller, said it was easier to milk her into a larger container. His Dexter cow was too close to the ground for a bucket, though she was about 44" tall. He said the Dexter milk was good stuff, his wife made all kinds of stuff from it. Just wasn't enough for their needs and he only wanted to milk one cow a day, so they went to the cross-bred cow. He had a number of Dexters which they bred and sold. He liked the size, said they were easy to work and handle.

The heifer I got was almost a yearling, but had not been handled except for Vet work. The seller had just had twin children, so NO TIME for any extra cattle work that year. The vet dealings like dehorning had made her quite excitable with men, wary. With daughter and I, she was easy to handle, pretty cooperative, during daily handling. We did the halter with a long drag rope, so she helped train herself by stepping on the rope, giving to the pull. Can't say how much that DAILY touching, doing stuff with her, was helpful. We got our routine and she was very happy, worked by her clock. We did alfalfa pellets and dry grain mix for treats when called, or walking thru the field to check fence, stop to pet her and go on. She did follow to check our work! VERY nosy cow and darn smart. Only took once or twice with most things and she "got it" to work with you. This included trailer loading, going into the grooming chute, being brushed and led to strange places like the horse barn, down the lane to various fields. Keeping it changing prevented her being locked into an unchanging routine, which some cows develop. They get wild if you want try anything different.

I found her very economical to feed hay, and she preferred grass mix hay. I got her some nice stuff, grass and alfalfa for growing heifer, but she preferred the grass if offered a choice. Oh well, HORSES like the alfalfa mix! I purchased about 50 small bales in late Feb. after buying her, gave her what she would clean up daily in the snowy pasture. I still had about 15 bales left by later April when the grass came in and she quit eating hay outside. She would still clean up a small helping in her stall overnight. And she was gaining weight steadily after I wormed her. That was about a week after purchase. She gained quite a bit from purchase in Feb. to when I sold her in Oct, almost doubling in size. She probably gained 300 pounds. She also gained height, body depth during that time. She was on good pasture of mixed grass thru summer until sold, with a small helping of corn/oats grain mix when stalled at night. I have good pasture, so all the animals look good on grass only in summer. Grass is fertilized every year or two and mowed frequently for improved plant growth to graze. I have small amounts of acreage for our numerous horses, so I have to maximize grass production to prevent needing to buy hay in summer. Switching the two small cattle into empty horse fields, I never noticed them cutting into horse grazing quantity. Cattle seemed to like different grasses than horses preferred, no bald fields from overgrazing. I would say she was about 600 pounds when sold, about 42" tall, looking very nice. Quite square bodied, so probably more beef lines. She was registered.

Her size was easy on my fields, no cut up holes or trails thru the grasses from sharp hooves like larger bodied animals do. This was even true by the pasture gates when she was waiting to come in. Dutch Belted steer calf with her was also smaller, 4-5 months old, so cow hooves made no cuts in my fields by tearing up the grass. And they DID have lots of fun running about in play! Both animals left lots of good manure all over. I think they added good stuff to the pastures, with resulting improved grazing this year.

We made jokes about milking her, but I didn't actually plan to. She would have needed a raised stand, and I didn't wish to be so tied down with daily milking. Husband then wanted cattle stalls back for more horses, so I sold her in the fall. I would not mind having another Dexter, she was a good experience. Talking with my Michigan Dexter Association folks was very helpful, informative. They were upfront about the short-legged issues, breed history, and pointed out that the DNA testing showed results on the paperwork, to those who wished for information of each registered animal. We visited breeders, looked at various types and learned what the preferred type was in the breed. Kind of "train your eyes" by seeing the good stuff. Have to say being surrounded by a herd of thirty, 36" tall cows (who were also about 36" wide in calf) was AMAZING! I felt like Gulliver, towering over the adult cows who were extremely friendly, even to total strangers. Cuteness beyond description!! Daughter wanted to go into the mother-cow field and hug the tiny calves, they were so plush and squeezable!

As mentioned, Dexters are an old, firm genetic breed, not new to the cattle scene. Using the registered animals, they follow a consistant type for the breed. Depending on the goals of the breeder, the animals are pretty much going to follow the breed standards for being beef or milk types. There are good arguements for breeding both long and short legged models. Bulls advertised for AI have the qualities listed to make your breeding choices for cows. There are quite a few Dexter bulls available AI, so choices are numerous thru the Dexter Association quarterly newsletter. Height, polled, color, easy calving, long or short legged genes listed for uniform results in calves. Everyone emphasized easy calving and good mothering in the breed. You won't be getting surprises in calf results like some of the new mini-breeds can produce using dwarfed or poorly fed youngsters, that will produce full sized offspring later on.
 
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