Looky what I got yesterday! (Lots of pics)

[Laura Workman]

My first registerable Dexter calf! He's a bull, red (obviously), 50% chance he's polled, A2/A2 (both parents are). His dam will be my very first milk cow, and I'm pretty happy with her udder so far! (Calf will be available for sale at weaning.) His dam is a short-legged Dexter (ADCA Reg. No. 025813). She was bred back to her sire, SGF SBAN Saber (ADCA Reg. No. 018869). Does anyone have a guess as to whether he's long-legged or short-legged?

[CJBegins]

That is an itty, bitty, little guy! How much do you think he weighs? Congratulations!

[Laura Workman]

I guess I'd put him around 40 pounds or so? She didn't seem to have much trouble with him, although she's pretty tiny herself, around 500 pounds, and she was at day 290 from AI breeding. I was getting nervous because she'd gone so long, but it all worked out fine!

[jesirose]

I was REALLY confused at first. Figured it out at pic #5. *smh*

Very cute

[o&itw]

I believe you can look up any registration on the ADCA and it will tell you the genetics of the animal. I am not sure when they started doing this, though, so if it is an older animal that might not work.

[karenp]

You should post some pictures on the Dexter Cattle proboard site, they're experts and really like to play the chondro or not game. I read somewhere that if they have swerls (sp?) of hair over where the horns would be they will have horns. I have a Dexter I'm raising to be a milk cow, let me know how it goes.

[Candy]

Me too!

Originally Posted by jesirose

I was REALLY confused at first. Figured it out at pic #5. *smh*

Very cute

[GoldenJoe]

Thanks for posting....we missed the birth of our first (and only) calf on our property as she ended up birthing at 11pm....we ran inside to get a light and check the web for the timing of everything and when we came back out 20 minutes later we had missed the whole thing and calf was getting a bath.....

[Suzyq2u]

congrats!

[o&itw]

Sire:
http://www.dextercattle.org/pedigree...&Page=1&Sort=0

Dam: http://www.dextercattle.org/pedigree...&Page=1&Sort=0

50% chance of Chondrodysplasia, but he sure looks like he has long legs now.

There is an article someplace on the ADCA website, that talks about the different shape of the top part of the head for polled cattle.

[Cannon_Farms]

I am one step closer to wanting my own dexter, now if the prices would just fall a bit

[krische1012]

Sweet little calf! Congratulations

[mary,tx]

Nice. The only time I've seen dexters I was not impressed with them. But yours is very beautiful. Is that a normal dexter color? She's looking in very good form. Ones I saw were scrawny looking.

Not trying to insult dexter owners by this comment, just noting that my original opinion of them might be reconsidered if this is what they really are supposed to look like.

[Laura Workman]

Well, I've seen a lot that are pretty beefy, and some that are pretty, well, sharp. I think the sharpness in some cases is supposed to be dairiness. I've seen the same thing in goats - meat goats look beefy, dairy goats tend to look underweight. But when you get to the shows, all those dairy animals suddenly start looking rather well fed, don't you think? I raise dairy goats, and I've had a couple that simply would NOT keep weight on, throwing everything they had into the bucket, and when they consequently lost weight, their production suffered. In my goats, I select for animals that can milk well AND keep their condition, which depends heavily on body capacity. But I digress. My cow is a dual-purpose cow, a beefy-looking cow from good milking lines. I looked long and hard for that combination, and wound up driving around 1200 miles each way to get her, but she's exactly what I was looking for. She does look the way I think Dexters ought to look and the way many DO look, especially if they're fed properly. She was fed through her pregnancy on very good quality grass and alfalfa hay and pasture, no grain at all. Now that she's freshened, she's getting the same grass hay (we're all out of pasture now), but since I'm out of alfalfa, she's getting alfalfa pellets, which helps entice her into the milking stanchion. If you try to raise a Dexter on a couple acres of crummy, dried out pasture with no supplemental hay, you might wind up with a skinny Dexter, particularly if she's feeding a calf. On the other hand, if you tried that with most other breeds, you'd wind up with a dead cow, so that does say something for Dexters, I guess.

[Laura Workman]

Oh yeah, color. Dexters come in red, ranging from reddish orange to deep auburn. Also dun and black. Mine is red. Dexters can be polled or horned. Mine is polled. They can be short-legged or long-legged. Mine is short-legged.