For Many the Dexter breed may have a confusing Past.

When you consider that people in the past were a bit confused about the difference between a Dexter (Dexter Kerry) and a Kerry you understand why it confuses people now. The fact that Dexters were called Dexter Kerry for many years after the two breeds were split from each other, continued to confuse people, thinking that Dexters were still no different than the Kerry breed. It’s interesting to note that in the Royal Dublin Society Kerry cattle were described as shorter than other cattle, so short that a full-grown cow was said to be the size of just a yearling (that was in 1890 when most breeds of cattle were smaller than they are now). As you can see Dexter cattle were not the only short ones as Kerry cattle have a long history of being smaller in stature too. If you have Dexters you can recognize that there is a strong similarity in the description of size among many of them. I have people come to my farm and confuse a full grown dehorned cow for a yearling of another breed. Once the two breeds were separated there immediately would have been a breeding divergence. Very detailed breed standards were already created that defined Dexters before 1911 at the time of the first printing of The American Kerry and Cattle Club Bulletin one. Following those standards for all the years prior would have helped pave the way for the breeds to be separated and defined as their own, but yet the confusion remained as can be seen in the below picture, because the breeds had so many similarities.

Waterville Violet The Kerry Cow

The cow in this photo above is from Bulletin One of The American Kerry and Dexter Cattle Club. It was printed in October 1911. This is the old name for the ADCA (American Dexter Cattle Association). The cow photographed is named Waterville Violet and in her description the title Dexter has been crossed out. Was this just a scribble that someone made at a later date randomly or was it something scratched out to add a correction after it was printed?

If you check the records in the ADCA you will find no Waterville Violet mentioned. If you look for a Kerry cow by the name of Waterville Violet you will turn up multiple citations of her as a Kerry cow. It looks like Violet was a Kerry heifer who calved in 1902 so we can get an idea that she was already quite mature by the time she was mentioned in the 1911 Bulletin. As much as things can be confusing it’s fair to say Dexter or not there are still purebred registered Dexters of today that look like Violet.

James E. Butler owned the Waterville herd. Mr. Butler owned and bred both Kerry Cattle and Dexters, as many of the original breeders of Dexters did because in selection the black more dairy type became Kerry and the cattle a bit thicker, black and red, possessing dual purpose traits became Dexters. Butler was also one of the judges at shows for evaluating Dexters for the entry into the herdbooks. He had a long history in the area. James Butler would have been an excellent choice for a judge due to his first-hand knowledge of Kerry and the native cattle of the land. Waterville is known as Coirean in Gaelic or “Little Cauldron”. It is a village in Kerry. The ring of Kerry passes through this town. It’s good to know that Dexters and Kerry cattle were being selected and registered by men with first-hand knowledge like James E. Butler of Waterville. I would suppose they were far more confident in the difference between a Dexter and Kerry when they were making their evaluations. I hope this has shed a little more light into the past of Dexter and even Kerry cattle.