Announcing Legacy Dexter Cattle Breeders.

[Deleted]

www.legacybreeders.org/
I hope you will all head over and check it out. Free membership.

[bruff64]

Awesome, good job

[rilie]

Really glad to see this taking shape and I can see all the hard work done behind the scenes! The website looks great.

[karenp]

I read the breed standards, it mentioned red and black, is dun not acceptable?

[genebo]

At the beginning of the 20th century, dun had not been recognized as a color in Dexters. No one is certain whether dun Dexters existed back then, but if they did, they were called red. That is how all non-black Dexters were registered until much later, near the end of the 20th century. Dun had been recognized as being a separate color by then. The registries weren't sure exactly how to handle it. At one time, a non-black Dexter was automatically registered as dun unless it could be proven to be red. One of the ADCA registrars went back into old registrations and began changing their registration to read red/dun unless there was proof that it was red.

There is a statement just prior to the breed standard that tells that dun was not recognized when the breed standard was written. However, it needed to be written just exactly as it was back then. It has been changed so many times at the whim of a few people. For the sake of the breed, we need to keep our Dexters within the standards, not adjust the standards to suit the latest breeding craze.

It is possible that dun was around when the standards of herd book 1 were written. It can't be confirmed nor can it be disproven. It is accepted as being included in the first breed standards under the red color.

Judy Sponaugle has done some remarkable research into the origins of dun. Anyone who is interested in that color should read her writings on the subject. It reads like a mystery novel, with plot twists.

[Deleted]

I hope genes comment cleared up the confusion. Maybe we need to change the wording on the statement we have before it to make it more clear. Dun is absolutely acceptable the word just was not used in the original standard they were just considered red. That is the reason we put a statement before the standard. I hope that makes sense. 

[jamshundred]

The leaders of the group have worked so hard to pull together the breeders who in turn have blessed the Dexter breed with their interest in the preservation of genetics so valued by our ancestors. Great job!

Judy

[teatpuller11]

Interesting discussion.   I read somewhere they occasionally got an off-color similar to a dirty oak table--sounds like dun, doesn't it, and culled them.  Mrs. Rutherford got duns accepted.  Maybe it was in her book?  Has anyone checked with the English to confirm duns would have met the original standards?   That would help to cool Cascade's jets. 

[rilie]

Though Judy can probably answer this better than I can, I've been reading a lot in the last few weeks. I read Thrower and Rutherford last week and a bunch of archived articles from England, Australia and the U.S.

Essentially, Dun like my cows has always existed and just wasn't recognized as separate from Red. Rutherford who carefully selected her breeding stock and fully admits others were out crossing in attempts to defeat the bulldog problem.

Like MANY issues here, discussing past breed standards the problem of the "Dun" color is really one of language, or vocabulary. In 1900, they didn't differentiate Red and Dun because it wasn't common and it probably didn't matter a great deal to them. They didn't discuss polled animals (or needing to born with horns) in 1900 because they (polled) didn't exist in Dexters, why bring it up? Even the issue of long-legged and short-legged were discussed differently. Some animals were described as "leggy" (refer to Thrower) but as far back as records go longer legged animals were not excluded/penalized from any judged show as far as I can find. I've been using genesreunited.com to pull up pretty detailed newspaper reports of cattle shows all over England.

Anyway, the problem is we don't always use words the way they were used 116 years ago. I'll continue my research and see what else I can find.

[jamshundred]

Rilie,

i have no doubt the dun was in foundation  cows, just cannot prove it as yet.p but I am sure I can and will as more herd book entries from tje esrly 1900's are added.  It is just a matter of time!   I know it goes behind the Grinstead herd, and some of that herd was developed from foundation stock.  There are many, many, many, animals listed as red in the early herd books, but the red numbers did not continue to increase but seemed to decline with time,  I have always heard that dun will overpower red, and think I have seen enough circumstantial evidence to believe that to be true.  When I purchased my bull Ivanhoe, the owner at the time first told me he was "red" when he was actually dun.  

I know you like the dun color...will have to get you interested in color research.

Judy