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Post by lakeportfarms on Sept 5, 2014 14:00:38 GMT
I thought with all the recent news about red or carries red traditional lines Dexters I'd post a photo of our girl Lady II. She's 4 years old now, and just had her third calf. The first two were not our breeding and out of non-traditional bulls. Last summer, when we found her, she was open and we hadn't gotten things set up for AI yet or had a breeding age traditional lines bull, so we bred her to our young bull Dylan. Dylan carries red and is chondro positive, and Lady produced a short red heifer for us this year. She's now bred to Walnut Lawn Shadwell. Sheril found that he was for sale in the hills of Eastern Ohio, and we went down to pick him up shortly after Lady had calved. He is a VERY short chondro bull, 6 years old, and has a fantastic temperament. The rest of him is pretty nice too, the only thing I could think of to improve him would be if he carries recessive red, but alas, he's all black. But he is A2/A2. Our ultimate goal will be a carries red, chondro positive bull out of Lady II, which we can then breed to some of our other traditional carries red girls and hopefully end up with some nice red shorties out of the matches. But we'll be happy for some that are not short of course. WVDexters, Lady II would like to let Knobley Macklynn know that she likes short legs on her boys, would like to have your baby, and says she can 100% guarantee that he or she would have red hair just like yours.  She says she's close enough in age to you...    You can see how short Shadwell is next to our non-carrier cows.  Lady II and this years heifer calf  |
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Post by lonecowhand on Sept 5, 2014 15:57:53 GMT
Lakeport,that's funny! When the time comes let them both know traditional horned red cows are happier in California!
Lady Too is really nice looking, is she on a registry? Shadwell sure is short, isn't he, how tall is that feeder ring neck scratcher?
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Post by lakeportfarms on Sept 5, 2014 17:55:44 GMT
Lonecowhand I'll agree California is a beautiful state, other than a few human created problems... they probably prefer our grass here right now, but they wouldn't mind spending November to April out there (as long as you get some rain soon)!
Lady II is Legacy and ADCA registered, but she'll show up as dun on the ADCA site. I haven't gotten around to updating all the test results and they won't list her as red until I send it in. You'll have a good chance of getting some from us sometime in the future, we have 6 traditional cows that are red (Lady II) or carry red. Plus a good chance of another that I'll have here in a couple of weeks. With WVDexters new little bull when he becomes available, we'll get obligate red out of Lady II every time he's used to breed her.
I'm not sure how tall that ring is, but Shadwell is about the same height of just a touch taller than our second from the top wire of our hi-tensile fencing, which is set at 36". So I'd say he is 36-37" at 6 years of age. He's smaller than our old bull Shamrock Mike, who measured 39" at 9 years of age. Slightly below the breed guidelines, but given that there are a lot of Dexters that are at the upper end or exceed the guidelines he'll be a great bull to pull the heights down a bit on his progeny. I'd attribute it to the Woodmagic Hedgehog, who is the sire of Shadwell's dam, only on a carrier bull. Sheril and I were thrilled to find him. His father is a beautiful bull himself, and I did everything I could to try to buy Shadwell's mother when we were picking him up, she's a beauty as well and very short.
Our herd is coming together well now. Sheril just called me a bit ago and said she has 4 more people on a waiting list for Dexter beef. She gave out a little hamburger at the start of the school year to her co-workers and they went nuts over it. She said she was walking in to copy something in the copy room and there was one of the customers telling 5-6 others about how delicious the grass finished burgers were...lol We're going to need to buy the rest of the acreage at the back of our property at this rate, and I may have to wind down my business and go into farming full time!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2014 18:24:12 GMT
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Post by lonecowhand on Sept 5, 2014 18:34:43 GMT
Lakeportfarms Your title of this thread says everything I need! Shadwells a perfect height,did you find him by pedigree search? I hesitate to ask, but is Mike still out munching apples in retirement?
It's great to hear that your project is expanding, how many cows per acre are you running (well, walking) and aren't you on Intensive grazing? I'm very interested in that possibility, given that irrigated pastures are the only way out here, unless you want to move the cattle up to the mountains like the real cowboys do.(I"M not!)
("Never rode the range, doesn't know no-how, Yippee-i-o-kiyay!") Bill
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Post by lakeportfarms on Sept 5, 2014 19:54:49 GMT
Nice looking bull Mike! Bill, we are intensive grazing, (during our short grazing season at least). We have 135 total, about 35 are Highlands. Of course many are just young ones, but we have about 80 that are either full or nearly full grown. We have 90 acres total now, though 50 of those acres are fairly new and in rough shape. The Highlands are working that down. Of the improved acreage, we run the 100 Dexters on that, since some of them are small, I'd say it's probably around 1/2-3/4 acre per full size Dexter. We fed hay for 12 days so far since mid-May, and that was mostly due to our excursion for a week to the Armada Fair. There was no way with the hours we put in there that we were going to move them 2x per day. On most days we move them 3 or 4x per day, followed by a back line every couple of days. As you can see, we really make the most of our pasture. If the grass stopped growing today (and it will in a month or so) I'd have about 30-40 days left of grazing for them until they needed hay. They're not fat like some like to see, but they don't look bad either, I'd say a BCS of 6 or 7 for most of them. I frankly think it's healthier for them than carrying extra weight. The steers we finish on grass get their own dedicated area, and they are moved 3x per day in the summer, 2x per day in the fall. They look pretty good.
Mike is still out munching apples, he deserved that much! I suspect we'll have to bring ourselves to do it in another month or so :-( Other than his arthritis, he actually looks a lot better than he did this spring. We can't put him through another winter though.
Sheril found Shadwell on Craigslist of all places. I have to hand it to her, she does a terrific job finding some exceptional Dexters that way. We really enjoyed our visit with his breeder and his herd is beautiful. He doesn't test for chondro and I know he's breeding chondro to chondro, but he likes his short Dexters. More power to him I say if that is what he likes. He is a diamond in the rough, and though he's very knowledgeable, I think he likes his independence from the ADCA politics.
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Post by wvdexters on Sept 6, 2014 3:06:51 GMT
 
Hans, Macklynn really enjoyed looking at the pictures you posted, especially those of Lady II. He wants her to know that he definitely has an eye for Tall Redheads with long beautiful legs. He also mentioned something about older girls being mysterious.
Hmmm. As for the babies ... his mama Caitlyn says he's too young to be thinking about those things for now. But given a little time ...
Yes, won't they be beautiful! |
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Post by lakeportfarms on Sept 6, 2014 10:55:39 GMT
Haha Karrie, too funny! What a great response! Sheril and I are really happy for you and we're looking forward to photos of Macklynn's progress. Give that boy a nice cozy place to bed down over the upcoming winter! I'm sure Caitlynn will take care of the rest and take good care of her too, she deserves it. How many straws of Big Mac did you have? Shawn Lord has two bulls, West Wind Thomas, and SF Ferdinand, that also carry red. It won't be long and you'll have to think about getting her bred once again of course, the days fly by this time of year with all the winter preparations keeping us all busy. Our leaves are already starting to turn.
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Post by lonecowhand on Sept 8, 2014 18:21:41 GMT
Lakeport, I guess this is almost on topic, except for red. Has Mike been collected for AI, it would be great to preserve his genetics. Maybe you can enlighten me on the costs?
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Post by jamshundred on Sept 8, 2014 18:37:16 GMT
Hans - Lady is such a pretty cow. The effort to preserve Legacy and Legacy traditional red has started and sputtered. . . started and sputtered. . . . although Gene has been plugging along and doing a great job, so it is really exciting to see breeders getting involved now and having calves hitting the ground!! Of the very few cows available and being used. . . . there are TWO Lady cows!
Judy
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Post by wvdexters on Sept 9, 2014 2:18:12 GMT
Yes, darn it. Fall does seem to be coming on fast now, and winter not too far behind I'm sure. We're ready though; there's plenty of good quality brome/alfalfa hay stored away, and a nice warm barn waiting just in case.
We only had 2 straws and used them both last season. (first didn't take) As for breeding her this year, we're still thinking... We have a nice little traditional bull here we are borrowing from Judy. He would do a great job and would give us a very fine calf. And he has already bred our other shorty Kate. But I keep thinking about the possibility of another all red calf and are considering going AI again this yr with her and going with one of Shaun's. I don't like AI, but.. Oh, decisions!
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She says she's close enough in age to you...
