Dextercattle

How much dairy should we put in to a Dual purpose Dexter cow. If you were to consult the English herd books they would say 40 percent for the “Bag” with the remaining percents being 15 for the “Head and neck”, 25 for the “Body, top line, under-line, ribs, setting of the tail, shortness of the leg, ect.”, 10 for “Quality and Touch” and 10 for “Colour”. So 40 points goes to the quality of the udder while 25 points gets divided up between the “Body, top line, under-line, ribs, setting of the tail, shortness of the leg, ect.”. It seems to me that in Dexters the focus today tends to fall primarily on mostly two aspects alone: shortness of leg and body type with general conformation coming in at the end. Even with 3 aspects it only accounts for 25 points for a Dexter. So there is a hyper focus on 25 % of a Dexter while the 40 percent in often neglected. The length of a cow’s leg and it’s depth are not the only traits that define a Dexter. Of course, we can’t forget the other traits that almost no one talks about, the “Head and neck”. You don’t get much meat off a head but it adds a distinct breed defining trait to a cattle type to set them apart.

It’s interesting to note that Kerry cattle that became a distinct dairy breed separated from the dual-purpose Dexter also list 40 points for the udder. The only difference is that more details are mentioned about the bag, “Udder, size, situation of teats, milk veins and escutcheon”.
Now before major concern sets in, consider that this point system is based on an ideal cow. There will always be cows in a breed that are not ideal, but the goal is to breed for the ideal cow. If you look at the 3 pictures of Kerry cattle, I will share you will see that Walton Bashful is listed as ideal and her udder is the best of the three cows shown. I’d say if an udder is ideal enough for a Kerry it can likewise be good enough for a Dexter that uses the same 40 percent system. Of course, there is no problem with having an even better udder than this cow does! The next Kerry is Valencia Eileen III. You will immediately see that she could improve on her forward attachment, but she was a Kerry all the same. The final cow is Ard Caeina Una. You will see she has some attachment issues, and you will tell that her udder is hanging lower by her hocks. The placement of her teats are too close and awkward but they were still put to use, as you will see by reading her milk record. Her yield 14,562 lbs with her butterfat at 4.33 percent. Still a valuable Kerry cow. With Dexters we need to seek generational improvement in dairy traits as Dexter’s udder points are just important as Kerry cattle, but we also need to remember that improvement is generational and culling cows with good production and butterfat won’t instantly fix a problem. It could lead us to a breed full of cows with very tight nonproductive udders just because new people think a tight looking udder is an aesthetically pleasing udder.