This picture is very interesting for quite a few reasons.
First Dexters though many were black in the early days compared today this bull Bantam was red.
Second and most interesting point to note, this bull was bred by the Prince of Wales at Sandringham in 1896. This location is situated in Sandringham, Norfolk, England. Dexters had a very early start of popularity in England being bred by some very noteworthy people. In 1862 Sandringham Estate was under 8,000 acres were as today the acreage is closer to 20,000 acres. If you look at the second picture you will see that in 1914 Dexters were still being breed at Sandringham by the King. The first bull Bantam has a good broad form for a Dexter of his day but when you compare him to the form of the Dexter bull that the King had in the photograph in 1914 you will see he has a broad back end as well as his front. I do wish this photo was better, but I think you can still make out the bull’s form. While improving on beef traits one must always remember to improve dairy traits equally too so as not to diminish dairy traits in favor of beef. When both traits are in harmony you get a great dual-purpose Dexter.
