Welcome, Silver Maple Dexters!

[Olga]

C'mon, Jeff, say hello! I'm glad you've found this board and joined us. Please, tell us about your farm, how you got started, and how you developed your breeding program. IMO, you've got some of the best looking cows I've seen, so I'm curious to know how you got where you are today.

[J & M Chambers]

Hi Olga. Thanks for your kind comment, but there are a lot of outstanding dexters out there.

We got started with dexters, as I suppose many folks do, because we wanted a dual purpose cattle breed. We wanted a moderate sized animal for our farm and the other dual purpose breeds that exist with any degree of availability, red polls and milking shorthorns are much larger of course. Recently I have heard from breeders of red polls that they are not much of a dual purpose breed any more as the dairy qualities have been lost in effort to make them a beef only breed. If you can get a hold of a copy or find at your library Claude Hinman's Dual Purpose Cattle, 1953, it is an excellent reference and resource on dual purpose cattle with many photos of cattle exhibiting dual purpose traits and type, no dexters unfortunately but incredible dual purpose cattle.

We took a goodly amount of time looking at dexters before making our initial purchase - making as certain as we could that the animals we were starting with fit what we wanted in our cattle. We evaluated those that we were thinking of purchasing as cattle, smaller cows but still cows.

From there we have tried to critically evaluate each of our animals and in our selection of sires and mating. Trying to move our herd in the direction we want, both in correcting traits that are less than ideal and to maintain traits that are at an acceptable level. I don't know how one would go about doing this without a fairly defined goal or a mental image of your "Ideal Dexter" and a fairly limited number of specific traits that are targeted.

I also would emphasize the very important extent that nutrition and in particular early nutrition has on the final type of the mature animal. We leave our calves on their mothers for at least six months - I think this has a huge impact on the development of the animal. Also once weaned, weaned calves should not be left to feed like a mature cow, a post weaning conditioning period is also important in development in my thinking.

All just my opinions.

Anyway, hope I have responded to your request Olga and thanks for starting this new board

[maverik]

Hi! New to the group--We're Five Ponds Farm in the Missouri Ozarks. We have Dexters as well as several other heritage livestock breeds. I want to ask Jeff Chambers (of whom I've heard not a little bit about from several Dexter circles, and it's all good!) about the post-weaning conditioning period he mentioned. Would like to hear any and all recommendations on this! We, too, like to wean later rather than sooner, but what to do during the transition? Our cattle are all pastured and not grained at all, except for treats to keep them thinking we're wonderful! I'm solicting comments from everyone on this, as well as Jeff. Thanks!

[lsg]

Your website shows that you have some beautiful cows with fine udders.