Dear ADCA and PDCA

[jamshundred]

Dear ADCA and PDCA,

PLEASE STOP ! ! Stop telling new owners to use initials as their herd identifiers. You are making the animals of the US herd boring and mostly unmemorable. A unique herd identifer gives a herd a personality.  .. . initials give it anonymity.

The registrars in other countries do not encourage owners to dumb down their herd names.

Amberley, Cartref, Pigeons, Pentre Hobyn, Weatheroak, Lowther, Sparr, Grinstead, Woodmagic, Round Chimneys, Banwell, Elysian, Ickwell, Runnymede. English herd names of the past with recognition in pedigrees and personality.

I am not going to embarrass American owners by giving examples of the anonymity that is being assigned to their herds but using initials means your herd, unless it is exceptional in the annals of Dexters. . . will have to be looked up every single time to see who and what they are. This seems to be an American "thing", sadly one encouraged by the registries. STOP! You are making our national herd a jumble of insignificant letters.

Ever heard of Peerless? What if the name had been the initials of the owners name or farm? JL ( John Logsden)or his daughter, NLM ( Nancy Logsden Moore). Could you imagine the Shome herd carrying the initials of it's owners Dean and Rosemary Fleharty? DRF. What if Helen Dixon's Virginia herd Dixie was just HD Dexters? Or. . .(here's a good one) what if Gabriella Nanci's herd, Belle Fourche had been registered as GN Dexters? Imagine the Chautauqua herd as MSF Dexters? Marcia Reed's Old Orchard herd as MR's Dexters. What would come to mind if you saw BN Dexter's instead of Legend? I think I have made the point.

Could you imagine Talisman as B&J's Dexters?  I love Chris Ricard's herd identifier, Celestial. . . . maybe because I came up in the era of "New Age".  And yes. . . I like the choice that Kirk uses, Cascade.  It makes me think of mountains and red polled cows.  A herd name is really important.  It adds personality and identity to a herd.  

New owners are being given NO guidance or encouragement to give their herds a unique identifier which also becomes the personality of the herd. I am a researcher. When I look at a pedigree and see Woodmagic I immediately see the owner and the animals. Same with Parndon, or Atlantic. I associate the herds with the identifier. Today I gave an owner the initial identifier of some herds in an area of the mid-Atlantic. Herds and owners I know well. . . . . . yet when I see the initials in a pedigree I have to stop, and it takes time to assimilate the identity. ( sometimes I have to look to see who the owner is).

Using initials is rendering quality US herds all but anonymous. These herds  are going to be in the annals of Dexter cattle forever! !  The registries should be encouraging owners to select a unique and special identity that will stamp your herd identity on every pedigree! not create anonymity with capital letters.  

Please remember.  New owners are heavily influenced by the breed associations.  You are doing our national herd a disservice by encouraging these owners, who have no experience or knowledge to know better, to create boring herd identities.

Judy

[lakeportfarms]

Judy, I agree. And we're also guilty. Our farm name was formed when we first started out, with Angus, unregistered, simply to start mowing down the brush. Due to the restriction on the number of characters in a herd, we thought we'd use too many letters for the prefix and not have enough for names. I'd love to change it...unfortunately Old Orchard was taken long ago, because that would have been a perfect name for our farm since it it a VERY old orchard. Our Farm Premise ID is also registered under the name. I suspect I could keep the legal name and just name our Dexters under a different farm name.

So, how do we go about changing it? Is it going to require a completely new registration number? We have registered a fair number of Dexters, but I have TONS more just sitting waiting to be registered.

[genebo]

In 2009, I had DNA tests run on a cow registered with the ADCA as Sweet Home Farm's liberty Effi #022936 (30 characters).

www.dextercattle.org/pedigreedb/ponyweb.cgi?horse=022936&HorseName=effi&Page=1&Sort=0

That same cow was registered in the LDCR as Sweet Home Farm's liberty Effi # L00639H-08HH (30 characters)

www.legacydextercattleregistry.com/a_results.php?regdiv=All&areg=&aname=effi&bname=&oname=&goQSearch=Go

Today, the cow is still registered the same with Legacy, but the ADCA has changed her name to Sweet Home Liberty's Effi. At some point her name was shortened on the ADCA on-line pedigree to 25 characters.

I have a number of emails from Chuck Daggett, informing me how many characters I could use in a name. Some emails say 21 characters, some say 22 characters, some say 23 characters. Because of the strict limit he enforced upon me, I had to change the name of a bull I was trying to register, from Tullamore Dew of Paradise (25 characters) to Paradise Tullamore Dew (22 characters). He deemed it better to change the farm name than to exceed the number of characters. Tullamore Dew is the only Dexter from Paradise Farm that does not have "of Paradise" as his farm identifier.

[cascade]

Hey Lakeport

"Lakeport" would be a good herd name and leave plenty of room for individual cow names. I would love to see a true-beeding Lakeport line of Dexters someday with the "Lakeport" stamp of excellence and a certain true-breeding look and feel to the animals... If you go with "Lakeport", the transition from LPFM to Lakeport would make sense to most people when looking at a pedigree. People would just view it as a switch from an acronym, to the actual name. On the other hand, If you go with something completely new and different, it might not make so much sense on the pedigrees and might look just like a new herd to most people.

I'm a huge fan of distinct herds (with good names as Judy suggests), each with a little different look and feel to them.... that's the best way to maintain diversity.

PS. I mention true-breeding herds because non true-breeding animals may not so easily carry a herd trade-mark look and feel.

PPS. I also hope that some herds maintain horns as their trademark look and feel.

[wvdexters]

We were almost just initials following the assoc example. Thank goodness for Judy and we were able to change since we hadn't registered any of our own yet. I love Knobley, I think it sounds so Dexterish.

One BIG problem I know we are going to be dealing with soon is duplicates. I know of one for sure in the ADCA. I discovered it when I was doing some research. 2 completely different farms/breeders and currently using and registering their animals under the same 3 initials. These aren't just a few animals either. It is going to be a confusing mess!

[otf]

Mar 22, 2015 23:53:57 GMT wvdexters said:

We were almost just initials following the assoc example. Thank goodness for Judy and we were able to change since we hadn't registered any of our own yet. I love Knobley, I think it sounds so Dexterish.

One BIG problem I know we are going to be dealing with soon is duplicates. I know of one for sure in the ADCA. I discovered it when I was doing some research. 2 completely different farms/breeders and currently using and registering their animals under the same 3 initials. These aren't just a few animals either. It is going to be a confusing mess!

This is a HUGE concern!  And the registrar didn't pick up on it?  Yikes!  (And this is a paid position?)  Never mind, I'll stay in my cage.

I wish we had had the forethought to use something other than initials.  In the beginning, for us, we were told 21 letters and spaces.  Not sure why that changed, but evidently it did, several times.  Oh well.

Gale

[jamshundred]

Karrie, I really, really, like Knobley too.   I hope the leadership and the registrars read this plea.  It is heartfelt.  Herd identifiers are "forever", and initials are not memborable at all.  

Gene, you will appreciate the accuracy of that statement.   I could sit here and recite herd after herd from the US and English records by their unique names. . . . . . but. . . .  I was giving an example to another breeder, and I used XXXXXXXXXX.  Drat. . . I cannot do that!  It would not be kosher to single out the herd.   So anyway, I was listing some herds by initial to make my point and wrote down the initials for this particular herd. . . and I couldn't remember who it was!  You would immedately know who I was talking about if I told you because we both know the herd  ( not you Gale - I DO recognize OTF),  and when it finally came to me I did laugh-out- loud because it was so apparent to me how right I am on this and how wrong it is to clothe these wonderful herds in anonymity.   

So please registrars. .. give this some thought and suggest to owners they select unique herd names that will identify their herds in history.  This is good for our breed . . . not just the owners.  Just explain any difficulties with the number of spaces. . . or let someone prepare a short paper or email on  naming your herd to send to new owners with their newly purchased animals.

Judy