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!

More on Choosing a Bull

This morning I read another article about selecting a bull. I have been mulling over this bull problem for a few days now, namely the fact that I'm going to need a bull in the next six or seven months. With that in mind I've been trying to read as much about selecting a bull as I can. One problem is that it is hard to find information specifically on selecting a Dexter bull.

The article I read this morning was titled, "What Does a Good Bull Look Like? Do You Know?" It just happens to be from The Stockman Grass Farmer and is by Allan Nation (the author of Quality Pasture). Mr. Nation talks about a visit he had in 2003 to a large ranch that seemed to, in his words, "be doing everything right." He was impressed with the steps they were taking to improve their herd until he came to their bull development area. The area was full of steer-looking bulls. Basically, bulls that looked more like steers than big, masculine, mature bulls. The man who was running the bull development said that he automatically culled any animal that was big in the shoulders because that would mean calves that were difficult to birth. According to Mr. Nation (who wrote the article) and Gerald Fry who was also at the ranch at the time that is wrong approach to take. Mr. Fry says that a good bull, "will look like a buffalo. "It will have a wide chest, a large head and big shoulders." This statement goes against much of the thinking in the seedstock world these days. The article again repeats the importance of having a quality bull to increase the level of your heard. While a good cow can make a clone of itself even if the sire of the calf is sub-par (something called cytoplasmic inheritance), a cow can never improve upon herself unless she is bred to a higher quality bull.

Another thing that I found very interesting in this article was this statement, "Highly masculine males create highly feminine daughters. The shape of a cow's udder is determined by the shape of her father's scrotal sack. Big shoulders on a male create a big butt on a female. It's the yin and the yang. Good males create better females." I have been told to look for big and muscular rear end on my potential bulls. According to this I should be focusing on the front end of my bull and not as much on the back end. If you are interested in selecting a bull I encourage you to check out this article. I found it pretty interesting even though it may have added to my confusion.

So, what do you think? Have any thoughts on what I should look for when selecting a bull? Especially a Dexter bull?


The Dexter Bull pictured above is Rainbow Hills Big Mac owned by Silver Maple Dexters. He is classified as excellent (91).

Selecting a Bull

With our growing Dexter herd it is becoming apparent that we are going to need a bull to breed our four cows next summer. We have two that will calve after the new year and then two that will be ready to breed whenever, so we are going to shoot for the summer to give us late March or April 2008 calves. I have been contacting different Dexter breeders in the area in an effort to see what is available, and I have found a few possibilities, but since I have never selected a bull before I decided to do a little research on the subject.

Initially I posted a question on the new Irish Dexter Cattle Forum. Olga from Impromptu Acres had a few good thoughts for me. She wrote, "I wouldn't buy a young calf; a sexually mature (around 12 month old) Dexter has more to judge him by. I would find a bull from a breeder with a large number of animals, whose animals exhibit consistency, and whose animals have the characteristics I'm looking for." Also, she said, "But generally, you look for a herd sire that's going to "fix" the faults of your cows in his offspring. I don't know of anybody who has perfect cows, but we should all strive for a perfect bull. That way the offspring is always an improvement." I think she made a lot of good points in her post and you can read the rest of them in the link. One problem that I am having is finding a mature bull and someone with a large number of cattle. But, I really appreciate the comment about having a perfect bull in order to improve the offspring of our cows. I believe this is something that I am really going to study to gain the knowledge to pick out that "perfect" bull. I have been looking at lots of pictures of Dexter cows and I do find my self thinking a lot of the time, "that is what I want my cows to look like."

HERE is another article that I read about selecting a bull. The author points out, "The choices you make impact your herd in next years calves and further down the line if you keep replacement heifers. If you're building your herd up the bull you choose can map the next dozen years - or make or break your program." This quote really hits home with me because we are looking to build our herd here at Stoneyfield and I realize this bull will have an impact on our following batches of calves if we are keeping back heifers to grow our herd. You can read the article for some other thoughts on selecting a bull if your would like.

On thing about selecting a Dexter bull is that you have a few other things to consider that you normally wouldn't have with other breeds of cattle. First of all you need to remember that the Dexter breed is only moderately popular and there aren't a lot of animals out there to purchase. Also, with Dexters there is always color to be thinking about. Most Dexters are black followed by dun and then red. The colored animals usually bring a premium when they are sold so it does behoove someone to have a bull that at least carries some color. I personally would like to have a dun bull, but we will just have to keep looking.

If you have any other tips on picking out a bull please let me know in the comments section. I need all the help I can get!

P.S. The bull pictured above is "Boxcar". He is a Legacy Dexter which means he comes from some of the older lines of Dexters and has many of the early Dexter traits. He is currently owned by the JAMS Hundred Herd and is possibly for sale if you are in the area and interested. I would be interested if I was in the area!