Lochinvar = Overused Horned Bull, with Polled Ancestors?

[cascade]

Lochinvar has over 80 calves in the ADCA registry alone in just 15 years....   (Saltaire Platinum only has 65 calves, in 25 years)

Lochinvar also likely has a bunch of polled angus and other breeds in his background....  Look at all those blanks on Lochinvar's great grandparent's pedigree:

legacydextercattleregistry.com/pedigree.php?registry=O&regno=EF5448

Notice how some of the blanks have been monkeyed-with to say "Horned" when they could easily be "Polled".... those blanks should either be left blank, or should say "either polled or horned", since so many early dexter breeders were also experimenting with other breeds including polled breeds like Angus.



PS.  Personally, I don't see any problem with Lochinvar since most all traditional and legacy dexters have likely have some naturally hornless, polled non-dexter ancestors in their backgrounds.

PPS.  I fully support the diversity of horned and polled dexters.... they're both terrific.   They all have tons of both horned and polled ancestors... it really doesn't matter....  What matters is selecting the traits that YOU believe are important for YOU today, within the Dexter Breed Description that allows for both horned and polled dexters.

PPPS.  I do appreciate the work Judy has done to work on the old ancient pedigrees and making the data available... they are historically interesting ( but not very useful in selecting TRAITS in today's animals).

[lakeportfarms]

Thanks for that link Kirk. I clicked on it and saw Grinstead Dora 6th including a photograph! A beautiful black horned Dexter she was. Almost certainly a chondro carrier. I haven't ever seen any of your "true short" Dexters that look like her, that's for sure! We're trying pretty hard here to make some that look like her though.

Now that I'm reminded of the Grinstead herd, I'll have to watch that video again. They must have hidden the polled Grinstead herd out back, because all of the cows in the video as well as the bull had horns. Here is the link, maybe you can watch it over and over and find a polled one for me? Careful though, you may start to like those little black carrier Dexters!  It's pretty hard to resist loving the cow that is at about the 1 minute mark especially...

[cascade]

Nice old video, I could watch it a million times! Reminds me of my grandparent's and great grandparent's cattle farms in the olden days in my youth.. I come from VERY long lines of old-time cattle pioneers (dairy and beef on both sides of my pedigree). My earliest memories were my grandfather squirting milk in my tiny toddler mouth, from the udder of a cow from several feet away (he had a good aim).

I would like to see the non-chondro versions of some of those cows in the video... I wonder if the non-chondro's had naturally shorter legs, or if they were tall lanky-legged... you can't judge those chondro's very well because the lethal dwarfing gene tricks the eye, by artificially shortening the legs.

Back to business....Polled Dexters CAN carry hidden horned genes and polled dexters CAN have horned offspring. Many of the horned cows in the video, likely descended from polled animals. All the holes in the pedigree in the 1930s and 1920's sure seem to point to some likely polled ancestry.

legacydextercattleregistry.com/pedigree.php?registry=O&regno=EF5448

But horned cows out of polled animals will never have polled calves. So if Grinstead started with horned dexters (out of polled cattle), they wouldn't expect to ever have any polled animals on their farm, so no need to look for polled ones in the video.

That's what we keep trying to tell you guys, and the video you showed proves it.... Your horned dexters (with polled ancestors) won't ever have polled offspring (short of a very rare fresh mutation), so stop worrying about polled ancestors and instead, focus on selecting the traditional traits that YOU prefer and be honest about it. Horned cows from polled ancestors can be 100% traditional.


PS. Wish you were nearby, Hans, ... we'd get along MUCH better than you might imagine, and I'd have you over to help me select cattle... I'm getting a good number of polled true-shorts (non-chondro) that aren't too dissimilar to some of those Grinstead cows, but without chondro, the legs aren't quite as short.

[cascade]

Here's Lady Loder's (Grinstead) Red Poll Cattle Manager  

www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/charles-cowdrey-the-dowager-lady-loders-red-poll-herdsman-news-photo/3416074




Here's an OBIT for one of the Loders explaining how they won many prizes for their Dexters and Red Poll (dual purpose) Cattle


www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituaries-sir-giles-loder-bt-1082282.html



Gotta love google