The ridiculus rant page, starring: .....

[cascade]

Jan 6, 2016 12:19:34 GMT bruff64 said:

True Short Dexters have horns, Lowlines don't. Pretty simple.

So then you want to kick all dehorned Dexters out of the Dexter registry?

Poor Ms. Fermoy.... She had no horns so I guess she is a lowline.

[bruff64]

"polled" Dexters were never allowed in the Registry to begin with. De-horning horned cattle was a choice of the ADCA Member. The hook or by crook method for the introduction of the polled upgrades was not a member choice. Show me the vote. Because your Angus Upgraded Dexters were slipped into the registry by deception no amount of revisionist history. The upgrades could just as well be lowline as purported dexter. The American Lowline Assn allows upgrades, you would find a welcoming over there. The underlying problem is that a few individuals used the resources of an existing organization to further their own objectives instead of starting a new polled registry. What you do not seem to understand is this is the underlying cause of all the problems. A polled association would have worked fine on its own, no need to have destroyed the ADCA. You may think that the ADCA has the upper hand at the moment. However, not being able to shed the Upgrade deception will hurt in the long run. Keep deflecting blame on the "radical purists" it will continue to erode your position. In the end, once the traditional movement is on solid footing the upgrade issue will be your achilles heel. Ball and chain that cannot be cut free. Instead of addressing a legitimate issue the ADCA consistently chose to ignore it. Typical head in the sand reaction.

So the Upgrades seem to have the upper hand in the ADCA and the takeover of the organization seems sealed. Too bad, an old and historical association is transformed.

[cascade]

Hornless Dexters have always been allowed in the registry. There has never been a ban against hornless dexters.

The rules of the association don't allow for other members to "vote" on whether a particular animal can be registered or not. Imagine if we all voted on registration for each animal, it would be chaos.

Instead, we CAN vote to set the rules that we all follow. The rules have always allowed for hornless Dexters and the rules have allowed for import into the US... Those same rules are in place today and we could import some purebred polled Dexter bulls out of Australia that don't have Saltaire Platinum on the pedigree.

By the way, all Dexters have scores of non-Dexters on their distant pedigrees, likely including Irish Moiled (polled) cattle , but there is zero evidence of any Angus on Saltaire Platinum's pedigree.

Ireland's oldest breed of cattle, Irish Moiled, is red and polled and dual purpose. Records show that the first Dexters likely included some of these. The red in your "Traditional" and "legacy" red Dexters may have come from those red polled Irish cattle.

[bruff64]

Play on words Kirk, I did not say hornless dexters. We are talking about polled animals masquerading as dexters. The association never allowed polled. So where is the VOTE on polled introduction into a horned registry? Since we CAN vote to set the rules where is that vote?? It does not exist. So we are to blindly follow? You keep asking for clarifications so give me your evidence of "all Dexters have scores of non-Dexters in their distant pedigrees" claim. You seem to prefer words such as "likely & may" to factual information and evidence.

I will concede that you do have some nice red and black lowline angus true shorts. They "may" even have some Dexter in them. They would "likely" be accepted in the upgrade program of the American Lowline Angus Association. Scores of opportunities for you there.

[cascade]

The association runs via legally recorded Bylaws... Nothing in the rules preclude Dexters without horns, nothing in the rules allows for a membership vote to decide whether to accept a particular animal or not. Nothing in the rules restricts removal of horns by ANY humane method, including use of the polled gene.

Why do you want to break the rules?


www.dextercattle.org/adca/adca_bylaws.html

[bruff64]

Head and neck. Head short and broad, with great width between the eyes, and tapering gracefully towards nu~zzle, which should be large, with wide ·distended nostrils. Eyes bright, prominent, and of a kind and placid expression. Neck short, deep and thick, and well set into the shoulders, which, when viewed in front, should be wide, showing thick- ness through the heart, the breast coming well forward.
·Horns-These should be short and moderately thick, spring- i':lg well from the head, with. an inward and slightly upward curve.

Straight from the original American Dexter Breed description. You can tell a lie forever but it will not become a truth.

[jamshundred]

It is a sad thing for me to gaze upon a Dexter without horns for the horns are a beautiful defining characteristic of the breed. It is disappointing to me that the dreadful practice of removing the horns was ever embepraced because it became a norm rather than an exception, Dexter breeders never had a leadership that encouraged protecting the characteristics of this breed as the Longhorn and Highland owners do. What a pity.

But for me it becomes a SIN against this breed to have a lied and deceived members by bringing into the breed a GRADE bull and passing him as something he is not. Neither pure nor purebred...his lack of pedigree integrity has created a breed now at more than 90% descending from this one non-purebred animal.

Judy

[rilie]

Ok, I'll be an idiot and put in my two cents. Why raise dehorned/polled animals? Unless you're a large commercial producer sending you animals to feedlots I don't see a reason for it. However, I can see a number of reasons FOR raising horned Dexters;

Aesthetics - Those horns are so damn cute

History - You know the original Irish homestead cows were horned

Security - I don't have to worry about livestock guardian dogs, the neighbors dogs learned the hard way not to come near the calf (the girls looked like a National Geographic video of a herd of Yaks fending off wolves)

Health - Horn perform a variety of functions for the animal beyond security. They regulate temperature, assist in digestion, and as the animal ages a tertiary sinus cavity forms at the base of the horn. Mother Nature didn't go through all the trouble of selecting for these traits not to have them serve some real long term purpose for the cows and the breed as a whole. Studies are really just in their infancy on the effects of disbudding/dehorning/polling but there are already some good studies in Europe where very long term organic programs (that predate the current organic movement) have shown significant differences in the milk produced by horned animals and dehorned/polled animals. Though they haven't looked into the 'why' yet, the consensus is a difference in how cows without horns digest their food. This is an excerpt from that article;

The connection between the cow’s horns, digestion and milk quality is not as far-fetched as it seems. Cows have complex digestive systems (ruminants have 4 stomach compartments) and when a cow chews the cud (several thousand times a day), digestive gases penetrate via the sinuses into the core of the horns. The more difficult the feed is to digest (such as on the African plains and Scottish Highlands), the more majestic the horns, allowing the gases to circulate further into them.


Anyway, my point is that I don't see a reason NOT to keep horned animals. I have a friend that's has a cow/calf operation with polled Simmentals. He told me a I was nuts when I told him I was getting horned cows, but after a few visits with my small herd he's seriously considering switching to horned Dexters. I'm sure I forgot a few of the positives here, maybe someone with more time in the breed could think of another.

Tyson

[cascade]

Horns are great and anyone who likes them should breed for them... I love looking at photos of horned Dexters. But for the past 100 years, quite a few folks have dehorned their animals and the practice became widely accepted. Long ago, Dexter breeders could have passed a rule saying "Removal of Horns is forbidden by the Registry".... but instead they said "Horns and hornless are equal in Dexters" That was decades before most any of us got into the breed. Dehorning dexters opened the door for polled dexters. Even many staunch supporters of horned Dexters have occasionally dehorned some dexters.

[Deleted]

So your saying the door never should have been opened to allow polled.

[cascade]

I'm saying that before any of us were born, folks who started dehorning Dexters, turned Dexters into both a horned and hornless breed. You might regret it, but you can't change history.

[jamshundred]

Rilie,

Thank you for finding and posting that information on the horns.  It is important that we work to educate owners not to fear the horns, they present no more risk to a child than the exterior of the woodstove most people have cranked up today.  They teach their children to respect and take care around the stove and it is the same with the horned cattle.  Every single time I read comments from an owner about dehorning cattle I feel nauseous for the reasons are always emotional and fear based. . . . . . .  .and they rarely acknowledge the pain and fear the animal they abused in the process experienced.   We need to work at having literature and discussions on the web to ally fears so more of these new owners who buy the horned cattle have resources to assuage those fears.   The Highland and Longhorn folks don't have this problem, because the identity of their breeds was never so maligned and mismanaged as was the Dexter breed.


Judy

[jamshundred]

Kirk,

The FIRST line of the mission statement of ADCA was:    To protect the purity of Dexter Cattle.

The history of ADCA will show the only thing protected was the greed and lack of leadership that has wiped out traditional Dexters.


By the way Kirk, I would like to take this opportunity to point out to you. . . . . .  . since you take every opportunity to remind folks how dependable ADCA is since it is an association with paid staff, that NO ONE has been able to register or transfer or do anything else for days. . . . . and this is NOT the first time in recent years that either the lab has been down or the registry or the website.  Meanwhile. . . . Legacy is up and running.   Fancy that.  Infallible isn't.  If you really, really, want to protect your herd. .. . you should consider dual registering.  It's the smart option, and very affordable.     Wink.

Judy

[lakeportfarms]

I posed the question about the inability to do registrations and transfers with the ADCA on the Dexter Cattle Enthusiasts FB site and how long is it anticipated to be down, and hardly anybody has responded. Very unusual...most of the time when the question is posed about which registry, it lights up with "ADCA only" responses right away. Now...silence.

[cascade]

The ADCA website and pedigree system is up and running well.
Members can still submit registrations via mail.
It's only the online registration submission system that is down for a few days while being replaced.
No big deal.
I often don't register calves till they're a year or two old anyway.

[lakeportfarms]

It's all about you Kirk? Tell me why the registrations and transfers to new owners I successfully submitted and paid for 3 weeks ago still don't show up on the online pedigree pages.

[cascade]

Online registration system is down and is being replaced, so that has put everything behind schedule. I'm sure you told the new owners to just be pat while the system is being replaced and told them that ADCA has an excellent track record.   I hope you also told them that ADCA has been around for 60 years and will be around for the next 60 years, and that as new members they will help run the membership-driven organization via their votes for regional directors.