New to this.. getting a Highland & Dexter

[Charrisse]

I have a highland girl and a dexter boy coming at the end of June. This is my first foray into cattle.
My Highland baby, Scarlett is hand raised and super sweet and friendly. Dehorned. She is tiny, red. Cute as can be. I have woodland she will quickly be able to turn to pasture - as it has mature trees and lots of underbrush to clear, and gets pretty good sun.
ANYWAY - I cant find ANYTHING on the TASTE qualities of a highlanders milk? Ive found plenty on the high butterfat content.. can someone describe the taste? I do know it will vary because of what she eats?
My dexter bull calf is named Jester. He is a sweet boy also, small, adorable. They are both about the same age - 4 months old now.
I plan to let them breed. Sell calves, perhaps keep a few high dex calves.. can he breed his offspring?
These guys are from excellent stock, have great lines..
What do you know now, you wish you had known when you started?

THANK YOU

[lakeportfarms]

Hi Charrisse...

Here's an old thread from the site that has some information:

Anyone milk Highlands?

And we'll make sure we have some nice cold Highland milk for you to drink when you visit, and you can milk one of the girls too if you would like! We'll have some Dexter milk too for you to compare.

Jester is a chondrodysplasia carrier, so it's not a good idea to breed him to any of his short legged offspring or you'll have the risk of a bulldog calf. But he's a fine bull and so you could do some linebreeding with him to the non-carrier heifers (the dexter percentage will increase to 75% if he's bred to the 50/50 high-dex cross). We'll show you the difference between the chondro/non-chondro calves when you are here.

[G. Seddon]

I'm sure lakeport can advise you on the crossing of Dexter and Highland.

I will caution you, however, that if you pasture your heifer calf with your bull calf, odds are she will be bred long before she should be (15 months is the absolute earliest to breed a heifer, depending on her size and growth, but if I recall, Highlands mature a bit later than most breeds).

If you are new to cattle in general, I'd suggest doing some reading -- a couple of books by Heather Smith Thomas come to mind, including "Getting Started with Beef & Dairy Cattle" and "Essential Guide to Calving."

Good luck with them!

[Charrisse]

haha! I figured you were on here!
I have had block scheduling at school all week, with my classes mostly empty due to out of classroom testing - sooooooo lots of free internet time on my hands to drool over the highland searches LOL!
The boys were asking for a taste comparison, and I am trying to come up with some answer, so I guess the "wait and see" answer will have to suffice them!
They are getting excited. Everyone keeps asking when do the cows come home? LOL They are such comedians
I believe Mr Jester will be "pastured" next to the chickens run, as A) a protection of sorts from nighttime critters visiting, and B) because it also has already started grass pretty well. Miss fancy pants Scarlet will be on the other side of the 5 acres, in the more wooded, spots that need some mowing down by her LOL Once she clears it off, it should grow in like a little park. I walked it the other day, never really spent much time in there because I didnt have time to "clear" that much land by hand.. but man, its gorgeous. Lots of very old oaks and poplars and beech and cherry. Once the scrub is cleared out and the old leaves churned up.. its gonna be to pretty.
I basically spent this whole day cowdreaming, more pointedly, highlandcowdreaming.
Will Mr Jester be fine in with three sided cow barn?

[lakeportfarms]

Both breeds have good coats of hair for the colder months, the Highlands obviously more. A simple shelter and windbreak is more than adequate for both of them, but ours only have the apple trees to make it through the winter here in Michigan and they do fine. Jester will be ready to breed before Scarlett, but G. Seddon is correct that the Highlands mature later, so she'll be more than sufficient size and age to calve at the earliest possible date that she can. Highlands are especially noted for easy calving, and combined with a small Dexter you have everything in your favor for that. So i's safe to keep them together, though that you have different areas is also good for the times you want to spend time with Scarlett without the presence of a bull nearby.

Sheril and I will get some current photos of them this weekend. I should also put up some photos of our property before and after the Highlands and Dexters did their thing on the brush and grass. Now if I can just teach them to use my HT131 Stihl telescoping pole saw to prune the extremely overgrown apple trees

[genebo]

Get ready for some cute calves. One of Brenn's first calves was a Dexter/Highland that was so nice the owner sold Mama and kept the calf.