Whats the maximum height for a Dexter

[Donlin Stud]

Loaded questions :

1. What would be the maximum height you would want to see a long-legged Dexter Bull at three years of age?
2.What would be the maximum height you would want to see a long-legged Dexter Cow at three years of age?


And then there are the shorts: (and Kirk, irrespective of the presence or not of the chondro gene)


3. What would be the maximum height you would want to see a short - legged Dexter Bull at three years of age?
4. What would be the maximum height you would want to see a short - legged Dexter Cow at three years of age?

[cascade]

I like where you're headed.... If you completely ignore the presence or lack of a chondro-gene, and you simply focus on leg length, then you have to understand that leg length is a continuum. So there would be very long legs, long legs, medium long legs, medium legs, medium short legs, short legs, and super short legs. If you attempt to just divide these somewhere in the middle based on actual length of the leg, we'd have to agree where that middle would be.... what is the dividing line between long and short legs?

I'd personally say that too long of legs are a fault that should be corrected (a short breed should NOT look long-legged in my humble opinion) and too short of legs are a fault to be corrected (don't need udders dragging on the ground).

It's kinda like sickle-hocked vs. post-legged.... both are bad and somewhere between is good

If you have an overall height restriction, then that will tend to eliminate too long-legged of dexters.

In a conformational scoring system... you'd just give lots of points to legs that are the perfect length, and give much lower scores to the too longs or too shorts and ZERO to the extremes.

I personally want all bulls to have moderate legs and to be no taller than 44" at three years
I personally want all cows to have moderate legs and to be no taller than 42" at three years

When I say "moderate" legs, I mean moderate for a dexter (which is quite short for cattle in general)

But that's just my own humble opinion

[lakeportfarms]

Donna,

We prefer a height for the short-legged (dwarf) cows of between 33-36".
For the dwarf bulls, between 35-38".

This would be at 3 years. We've found that the dwarf Dexters seem to mature to their full height a year or two earlier than their long-legged counterparts. We see very slight growth after 3-4 years of the dwarf in height perhaps an inch or two at most. The long-legged cows and bull can easily gain 3-5" in height between 3 and 9 years old.

This is for cows and bulls that are on a good ration of grass and hay. If the owner so chooses to feed grain as a supplement, you can expect a bit faster maturity and "fill in" of their body compared to the forage/hay only based diet in the first 3 years. However in the later years, there is little difference in their overall height and size. No matter what, grain will add condition to a cow if you feed it to them every day.

[Donlin Stud]

Whew - thats about where we have re adjusted our dwarfs to as the ideal.