[dexter midnight runners]

Good Morning and thank you for having me.

I'm John and I currently help operate a smallholding with my father.  Basically he is the guy with the cattle knowledge and I do the admin!  He is semi retired and farming has been his passion all of his life...whereas me being a City boy I'm growing into it.

The farm is based in Warwickshire and we have been doing this coming on for 10 years but we are by no means masters in our field (pardon the pun)

What I'm looking for from this forum is advice and ideas as to how to run and improve our operation.

One of my biggest regrets is that although we run pure bred dexter cattle it is not a pedigree herd and that impacts us when we try and sell our cattle in particular to butchers who often demand this.  I may be biased but our cattle are every bit as good but such is life.  However we are where we are and it still brings him and me lots of joy tending to his cattle.

Anyway that is a brief outline of where we are and I'm looking forward to viewing this forum.

[arobwk]

Welcome [member=206174]dexter midnight runners[/member]:  interesting intro'.  Unfortunately I know extremely little about cattle so just a "Hi" from me.

[Rosemary]

Hello and welcome  .
We have Shetland cattle.

[Backinwellies]

 
Welcome.  I have Shetland cows and did have pedigree Dexters as well,  until last week when I sold them to reduce numbers.

An idea or two:
Why not buy a registered cow to add to your herd and slowly change to pedigree if that is an issue (they are not expensive) .

 Also why sell to butchers?  Beef boxes are generally easy to sell direct (depends on the number of cattle you have ofcourse) .

One local beef breeder here sends off one beast a month and has it all minced and steaks .....  sells very easily through markets and direct.

[YorkshireLass]

Hiya!


A passing thought - would the Dexter Society do some sort of grading-up, e.g. if your next bull was registered, would the offspring be eligible for registration? It would be a way to slowly transition the herd but keep your good cows - if you're finding the lack of official pedigrees to be an issue.

[Lesley Silvester]

  and welcome from  Shropshire. I don't know much about cattle but I do like the look of Dexters.

[SallyintNorth]

Hello and welcome.

It may not be related but there has been a scheme running for a good few years, spearheaded by Morrisons and the Duke of Cornwall, to promote the native beef breeds, whereby offspring of a pedigree registered bull of a native breed would attract a premium.  So you might find that using a pedigree bull would be sufficient; make sure his details are on the passport of all the calves he sires when you register them.