Mini-Cattle: The Amazing Irish Dexter

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Irish Dexter mini cattle are compact, docile, and highly productive, though somewhat rare. PHOTO: RANDY KIDD

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.