The Amazing Irish Dexters
The Irish Dexter is a small breed of cattle that requires little grazing land, gives a fine yield of beef and milk and is docile.
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Photo by the Author
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Randy Kidd reports on "miniature" cattle:
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Suppose someone could "invent" the perfect cow for
homesteaders . . . what would the bovine beauty be like?
Well, the animal would probably be an economical, small
beast that required about half the grazing land of an
ordinary cow or steer . . . yet still gave a fine yield of
both milk and beef, right? Not only that (as long
as we're fantasizing, we might as well go all the way!),
but the critter would be so docile and friendly that it
could be a domestic pet as well as a livestock animal!
Well, amazingly enough, such a small-is-beautiful breed of
cattle actually exists! These "dream beasts" are called
Irish Dexters (they were developed—years ago—by
frugal Gaelic folk who wanted to get a lot of milk and meat
but owned only small plots of land), and they really and
truly do possess all the "invented" virtues listed
above.
So if you're a small-scale farmsteader, Dexter cattle could
quite possibly be the perfect livestock for you to raise.
BUT (isn't there always a "but"?) before you try
to build up a herd of the pint-sized bossies, you should
take a close look at both the "pluses" and "minuses" of the
Emerald Isle imports.
THE GOOD NEWS
Irish Dexters are, indeed, much smaller (and therefore more
"homestead sized") than our common cattle breeds. A mature
cow of this unique line averages around 600-800 pounds, and
an adult bull weighs in at between 800 and 1,000 pounds
(which makes the beast a heck of a lot lighter animal than
the average-sized 2,000-pound Brahman steer!). The
waist-high ruminants are stocky and very short-legged
(especially below the knees) critters. In fact, they
resemble heavy-shouldered Black Angus cattle, but they're
built so low to the ground that you almost wonder if their
briskets will drag!
Dexter cattle are also "easy keepers": They're relatively
weather-hardy beasts and require much less land and grain
than do larger bovine breeds. During the grazing season, a
cow and her calf can eat heartily on a couple of acres of
good pasture . . . and an adult Dexter's daily wintertime
ration need be only a bale—or at most a bale and a
half—of hay along with a pound of grain.
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