A Question About Dexters

DenMacII · #1 09/10/08, 11:13 PM

Recently at our County Fair we came across a person promoting Dexter cows for the small farm. She cited that they have a great disposition, are about 1/3 smaller than most standard breeds, and less milk production (more ideal for a family wanting thier own milk, butter, etc.), among other reasons for choosing a Dexter over say a Holstein or Jersey.

What she was saying made a lot of sense until she got to the price of a calf. We're used to seeing dairy or beef calfs in our neck of the woods for $75 - $125, but she said that a Dexter will set you back about $1500.

Is that a real price!?! We are not real familiar with raising cows, yet..., but I certainly can't see paying 10 times the price of perfectly good breeds for a 'pleasant' breed of cow fit for the small farm.

I would love to get some insight from those of you who have Dexters. I am hoping to learn that she was trying to get us to pay the 'One born every minute' price, and the reality is that they are much more affordable than that.

Thanks for your time and thoughts.

tenn. hick · #2 09/10/08, 11:38 PM

we had dexters they do give plenty of milk we didn't milk them. ours was not gentle at all and when they had calfs we tried to make them as gentle as we could but not much luck. we stayed with our jerseys and milked them and had 2 calves on them. as far as price we paid 400.00 for a bred heifer with papers and 800.00 for a cow.

Tiffin · #3 09/11/08, 07:13 AM

I have paid $700 to $800 for a weaned heifer calf. $1200 for a cow and her calf. I just sold a bull calf and was lucky to get $400.00. I know of people trying to get the price you were quoted. I don't know if they are successful. Some people are looking very hard into the Dexter lineage which can drive the price up. By the way my Dexters are all very good to handle. Most of them I can pet and brush. I can brush any of them if they are in a stall. They each have their own personalities and quirks. I've thoroughly enjoyed them. I forgot to mention I do not milk.

wstevenl · #4 09/11/08, 07:32 AM

I've seen weaned calves from two different people now for 450 and 550 (bull and heifer) but for the people that show and get all into bloodlines things get more expensive. If you're spending alot of time and money on your "show cattle" then you want alot for your calves too. I've spent 1400 for a bred cow and 800 for a bred heifer. It seems like the price for an adult female is usually around 1000, a little more if bred.

Remember that dairy calves need to be gotten rid of because they drink the farmers valuable milk but a dexter calf is an asset to the small farmer that raised it.

ozark_jewels · #5 09/11/08, 07:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DenMacII

We're used to seeing dairy or beef calfs in our neck of the woods for $75 - $125,

Is that bulls or hiefers?? Around here you can't hardly buy a dairy heifer for less than $300-$400. And they are worth that much.
Bull calves go for $50-$125.

DenMacII · #6 09/11/08, 10:21 AM

My most recent 'price check' was when our local farm store was selling holstein calves for $75 each - I believe they were hiefers.

genebo · #7 09/11/08, 10:22 AM

You were talking to a person who shows their Dexters. There's a lot of work in making an unruly calf into a show animal, and those show animals are worth more money.

The prices you were quoting for beef or dairy calves are for day-old calves. Weaned calves from those breeds will cost more. That day old calf will eat a lot of feed and drink a lot of milk replacer before it reaches weaning weight. It may even die. That's why they're so cheap.

For the most part, you get what you pay for. You can't buy a day-old beef calf and raise it into a show steer for much less than $1500. However, that would make very pricey beef. If you want a steer that has been weaned (6 months old) and is ready to be finished (at 2 years old), be prepared to pay about $400-$500 for it and feed it for the next 18 months. It's about the same price for Dexter steers as it is for the other beef breeds.

Dairy heifers that are ready to breed or have been bred, and have been trained to milk, have a lot of time, feed and handling in them. Don't expect to buy them cheap.

So comparing the lowest price that you ever saw for a cow to the asking price of a well pedigreed, trained animal with a good udder, great condition and excellent conformation is not a fair comparison. You'll find the same range of prices in any breed.

Genebo
Paradise Farm

DenMacII · #8 09/11/08, 11:16 AM

Genebo, thanks for the great information.

I can certainly see the 'apples for apples' comparison more clearly now. These holsteins were probably about a month old, and as a good sales plan for the store - I would need to be buying milk replacer for the next 5 months from them.

francismilker · #9 09/11/08, 12:56 PM

I hate to seem once again like I'm on a Dexter bashing bandwagon, but the bottom line is this: Something is worth only what others are willing to pay for it. If in fact a person is in the market for a beef animal, they go to the sale barn and purchase it by the pound based upon going rate of the industry at the time. When you purchase a dairy cow, you go to the sale and give the average going rate of what the market price is at the time.
The thought of giving $1500 for a calf is insane. (That is if your intentions are to get a return on your investment.) On the other hand, all of us here on the board do have animal loving tendacies. If you're looking for a pet the sky's the limit.

The reason folks are asking $1500 dollars for a Dexter calf may have something to do with we're willing to pay it. I'm not saying they are just a fad, because they've proved they are here to stay. Back when Emus got popular in the early nineties, we all thought $2000 was bit pricy for a pair of young birds. But, some folks were willing to pay it. When raising exotic poultry in my area went crazy a few years ago, I thougth paying $250 for a pair of baby peacocks was a bit pricy. But, some folks were willing to pay it.

When the markets on all of these former "fads" or "crazes" fell out of sight, folks in my area were stuck with a choice of either feeding a bunch of pets or cutting their losses. (Consequently, that left our area abounding with multible "wild Emu" sightings as well as Pot Bellied roaming the bar ditches.)
IMO, if a person is going to go and buy something that is supposed to be dual-purpose it might be a good idea to consider the consequences of sale if the specialty market no longer exists. Think about taking your beef/dairy animal to a beef or dairy sale. This animal is going to have to sale up against animals that have been bred to perform as they were intended. If it's the dairy sale you choose, the Dexter is going to be a lesser producer there for being worth less. If it's a beef sale you choose, the animal is going to weigh less therefore being less valueable. I've been going to beef and dairy sales all of my life and I've never once heard the auctioneer at one of these stop the normal flow of things and say, "OK folks, here we have a Dexter. It will milk less and produce less beef but we need you to keep bidding until the sale price is double that of the angus or holstein that just left the ring."

Always be vigilant about where and how easy it will be to liquidate your original investment to keep cash flow going when times fall hard....

Tiffin · #10 09/11/08, 05:58 PM

francismilker, you have made some great points. I think the thing with Dexters is the ease of handling because of size and temperament for us folks like me who are just starting out with cows in general. We bought a 165 acre farm as a lark and because of the property and barn we decided to try different animals and see what we liked. Goats, no, there gone. Pigs, in the freezer. Chickens, come and go. Cows: a lot of research came up with the Dexters and availability 2 miles away to get started. We fell in love with them. It isn't about the money, it's about the pleasure of having them. I breed and sell them but I know I am losing my "but." I am told all the time to get rid of these "designer cows" and get real beefers that will make money. But, I don't know if I could enjoy any other type of beefer unless I really needed the money.

DenMacII · #11 09/11/08, 06:11 PM

Thanks too Franismilker for your insight. Your points are right inline with my questioning. I was not aware that pricing for Dexters - especially in my area - could very well be a fad price. The pricing quoted to me were not for 'show,' 'bloodline' or breeding heifers or bulls, they were for a weaned calf of either sex.

We've got a lot to learn! Glad this site is here!!

gracie88 · #12 09/12/08, 12:11 AM

I don't know how Northern you are, but you might check Oregon. I have a yearling bull I would happily sell for $400 (unreg, he's probably going in the freezer) and I see heifers and cows occasionally for sale under $1000. Francismilker is right, they are easy to handle and cheap to feed, but they will not milk like a milk cow or grow like a beef. On the positive side, if you give it a year or two, prices should drop to a more appropriate level.

65284 · #13 09/12/08, 09:06 AM

Francis, you are right about your example of sale barn prices for Dexters. But, you and a lot of other folks seem to be missing the point about Dexters. They are not and never will be commercial dairy or beef animals meant to marketed at auction barns. I think it's missing the mark to compare of them in that manner.

While there may be families that do, I don't personally know anyone that needs the 6+ gallons of milk a Holstein produces daily for family use. And, there are a lot of families that couldn't consume a huge commercial breed beef steer before it freezer burned. A small, low input, animal that produces moderate amounts of milk and meat are exactly what a lot of folks want, and a Dexter fits that description well.

When kept in proper perspective, oranges/oranges- apples/apples, Dexter's excel as small acreage family cows and producers of beef for home use. They are niche market cattle but they do have their place, definitely not a fad animal. We have had them for 20 years and have done very well selling excess females as family milk cows and the steers as freezer beef, in fact we have a waiting list for both.

All of that being said, I agree that the price quoted seems a bit steep for a calf. But, if none are sold at those prices the seller will soon adjust the asking price or have a lot of them around to feed. It's easy to lower your asking price but darn near impossible to raise it, and remember the old adage about some lollipops being born every minute, you never know when you will run into one.

FreeRanger · #14 09/12/08, 11:54 AM

We are currently trying two dexter steers with plans to buy heifer calves later if the steers work out. So far we the experience has been good.

We paid $0.90 a pound live weight for 18 month old "calve steers." Which came out to be $900 for two beef steers that weigh more than 500 pounds each. I think that is very near the going price for wean dairy calf steers. I see them selling from $0.80 to $1.00 a pound in our dairy area.

Which means we only have to feed them until next Spring or Summer. We have/had the pasture and grain and no livestock to eat it so feeding costs is not a factor. They were grass fed and we still just grass fed them. We pre-sold the meat before we even purchased them.

I don't know how much a couple of wean heifer calves will cost us next summer. But the two local farmers I have been dealing with are asking reasonable prices. Could be we have enough Dexter farms in Southern Wisconsin that the fad prices are over now?

~Tomboy~ · #15 09/12/08, 12:13 PM

I think that some of you are forgetting that fact that Dexters are still considered a rare breed, now on the recovery list of the ALBC.
The American Dexter Cattle Assoc. show less than 20,000 Dexters registered in it's association. I am not sure how many are registered with the PDCA, but many of those are double registered.
How many Jerseys, Holsteins, Angus, etc. are out there???? The numbers don't compare.
When looking for quality breeding stock, trained milkers or show animals the price will be higher.

genebo · #16 09/12/08, 03:45 PM

$1500 for a show quality Dexter? Try $25,000 for an Angus bull or double that for a Holstein cow. Yet take either of them to the sale barn and you'd only get the going rate by the pound. Of course, you'd not be wise to do that.

In every breed, there are low quality animals, run-of the mill quality animals and high quality prize animals. The prices vary accordingly. Comparing a show quality Dexter to a sale barn mixed breed cull calf is not a fair comparison.

Due to the overall quality of Dexter breeding stock, you don't get many cull quality Dexters. Those that are deemed unworthy of breeding are normally chosen because there are too many bulls and not enough cows. They usually go straight into the freezer or are sold privately to a waiting list for Dexter beef.

Down at the sale barn you'll find split hooves, wormy stock and those that just plain "aren't thrifty". No wonder they're low priced. The dairy bulls are taken from their mothers very early. They're not wanted. They were just a way to get her to come into milk again. They're being thrown away.

Demand is what drives the prices. Ask too much and you'll end up keeping it. Any price that finds a happy buyer is not too much.

I know people who regularly sell Dexters for 2 or 3 times as much as I do. They aggressively advertise their cattle and have beef for sale at all times. They work hard to supply a niche market. I don't begrudge them the extra money they earn. I don't want to work that hard and this ain't communism here. It's capitalism. Hard work should get it's reward.

You have to do a lot of hunting to find Dexters to buy. It isn't as easy as buying a beef calf at the sale barn. Lots of my friends do that and make more money than I do. But they don't have the daily experiences that I do with my Dexters. I don't just give them a place to live, I adopt them. I rub them and hand feed them and they reward me with peace and contentment. Plus a little spending money when I sell a calf.

My friends won't even go into their pastures on foot. They ride four wheelers and carry guns. Working their cattle is a stressful time. It's not what I want to do.

Therefore I have these cute little gentle, friendly Dexters that give such great milk and taste so good.

For me, with my small farm, I can't afford to raise even a few of those monstrous beef steers. They'd eat me out of grass in no time.

I'm happy with my Dexters.

Genebo
Paradise Farm

mommahen2four · #17 09/15/08, 02:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by genebo

I know people who regularly sell Dexters for 2 or 3 times as much as I do. They aggressively advertise their cattle and have beef for sale at all times. They work hard to supply a niche market. I don't begrudge them the extra money they earn. I don't want to work that hard and this ain't communism here. It's capitalism. Hard work should get it's reward.

Genebo
Paradise Farm

That's Awesome!