Gerald Fry on Bulls

The whole process surrounding our search for a bull has been very interesting and informational. I have learned quite a bit about what to look for and the signs and measurements that you can use to help choose your bull. I have really taken the old adage that the bull is half your herd to heart and I tried to find something that was more than just male. To that end I have had a lot of help from people in the Dexter community and folks that just plain know cattle.

One guy that I was pointed to quite often was Gerald Fry. He has a website called, Bovine Engineering, that has a lot of information about grassfed beef, selecting genetics, choosing a bull, and so much more. One article that John Potter recently pointed me to is this one titled, "A Well Balanced Bull and the Benefits of Masculinity". It is just a short article, but it is full of great information on selecting a bull.

Mr. Fry describes a well balanced bull with this sentence, "The objective for a well-balanced and functional bull is to get 85% of his cow's settled on first service and do that job on grass and or hay and maintain his body weight." This is something that I couldn't really judge as we picked out our bull, but it is something that I'm going to pay attention to in our future breeding. Mr. Fry also places a lot of emphasis on selecting a bull that is masculine. As I have mentioned in the past this is one thing that has been difficult as we looked for Dexter bulls.

According to the article a good bull will show its masculinity in its head, neck and shoulders. Look at things like the amount of muscle, the thickness of the skin, coarseness of the head hair, position of the legs, and more. A well balanced bull as described in the article will be a benefit to any beef herd.

I look forward to continuing to learn about selecting a herd bull so we can begin improving our herd through our breeding. Do you have any other links or thoughts on selecting bulls? Let me know if you do!

We Found Our Bull!?!

Well, I think it is safe to let the cat out of the bag finally since I have signed a contract and sent out the deposit! After much searching, learning, discussing, and all of that good stuff I think we have settled on a bull for our herd. Finding a Dexter Bull that I was at least partially satisfied with has proven more difficult that I thought it would be. If you remember back in October I wrote THIS POST and THIS POST about selecting a bull. Both of those posts linked to articles and forum posts discussing the qualities and traits you should look for when picking out your bull. Things were more difficult because it just doesn't seem like there are a lot of good Dexter bulls out there ... I have a couple theories on why that is, but I won't get into that now.

So, here are a few requirements that were on my short list ... He had to look like a bull, not an old cow or plain steer ... He needed to be dun or carry dun genes ... He needed a decent background ... He needed to be old enough to work next summer and old enough to get a better idea of his looks ... And, he needed to be horned or dehorned. Well, I think I did pretty goods fulfilling those requirements and I may have even ended up a little better.

With out further ado let me introduce to you, SGF SANT Hershey! Here are the details ... The "SGF" stands for Spruce Grove Farms which is John Potter's farm in Michigan. Mr. Potter is a well respected breeder of Dexters and Dexter bulls and I had a chance to have a great conversation with him as I was learning about bull selection. In fact I would have loved to get a bull directly from him, but at the time I talked with him he didn't have anything that fit my bill. The "SANT" speaks to the year he was born and his sire who is Antares. Antares seems to be a pretty popular bull as evidenced by the 52 Dexters that he has sired! His dam is also out of Spruce Grove Farm's breeding so that is a plus. He is horned as you can see ... he is dun as you can see ... but, one little bonus that you can't see is that he carries a gene for red. So, if we had a cow that carried the red gene we would have the possibility of a red calf!

Hershey is about 20 months old so he will be plenty ready by next summer and we also have a decent idea of how he is going to turn out based on his looks right now. He has a nice set of horns on him so we will have to give him respect, but he also can be gentle and I have pictures of his former owners with their arms around his neck. Gentleness is one of the traits in Dexters that led us to bring them to our farm. All in all we are pretty excited about bringing him home and I'm really looking forward to the 2009 calving season!

He will be coming from Marian and Erik at Five Ponds Farm in Southern Missouri. They have be a joy to work with as we have gone through the whole process and I'm looking forward to meeting them in person when we get a chance to pick Hershey up (not sure when yet). If you are interested in Dexters, Navajo-Churro sheep, Red Wattle hogs, or even daylilies and hostas I encourage you to check out their website. They have a lot of neat things going on at there farm.

Hopefully in the next month or so I will be able to post pictures of Hershey at Stoneyfield!