Dexter Cattle For Sale Discussion Board

Good morning, I have a great offer from a local gastro pub to start buying my Dexter beef, will be a good story for me to use, only issue is that they need the first one in November and the only animal I have close to finishing is a (very good) 23 month old steer, he would obviously benefit a furthe...

thanks Duncan, yes I'm going to divide up the field with electric fence, and put the 4 older steers and bull calf on one side and the 8 month old heifers and steers on the other side. I'd like to put them in a different field but it'll mean loss of second cut and both fields getting over grown. Just...

thanks Steve, how old we're the bull calves she was running with?

Thank you. I've seen absolutely no activity, in the last 3-4 months of any of the heifers looking remotely interested in anything but spring grass and sleeping in the sun, the bull calf also, but I shall heed advice and separate. The difficulty I have is leaving the poor boy on his own. The easiest ...

Hello, I have 6 x 8month old calves, have been weaned about 6 weeks. One of the calves is a bull calf, who I have high hopes for, the rest are a mixture of steers and heifers. But I'm thinking he could be fertile quite soon...and I don't want him to get any of my young heifer calves pregnant. Am I o...

Hello, sorry this is a bit of a local post, but I was wondering whether anyone had experience in using small abattoirs in Devon. I used Coombe Martin a while back, but have been told Ottery St Mary is excellent but it's a bit of drive for me (live nr South Molton) I need the abattoir to kill, cut an...

Yes she was always intended for slaughter, her confirmation isn't great so I don't want to breed from her - she's also fairly stroppy...I can certainly isolate her, I guess I'm always keen to keep my cattle all together as I know they don't like being on their own. I'll ask my neighbour tonight if t...

One of my 22month old heifers, that I'm pretty sure was bulling, escaped onto the neighbouring farm a week ago. The field she got into had a herd of commerical holstein / Limousin Cross including a bull. She's now been caught and I'm picking her up tonight. 2 questions I'd be interested in some advi...

Yes things are now picking up, with two more born this morning, 5 minutes before I was due to go to work (!) but the key to everything it seems is colostrum, and I got them latched on sharpish. I also milked her and now have some spare to sit in the freezer. Gold dust. Over in the cattle shed, I've ...

thanks Builth, thats good to hear, so far 7 lambs born, 4 dead. Hopeless!

yes, I know its a huge subject, but I was thinking recently compared to my sheep who seem to need constant injections, drenches, foot attendance, stomach tubing etc! that I don't tend to administer much to my herd and maybe I need to do more. Maybe its because cattle don't exist on this planet to di...

thanks all, really interesting, mine are all in the shed, 11, divided into: pen A: 7 (2 in calf due May) 4 hopefully in calf due September) 1 nearing readiness to be slaughtered. 2.5-3 bales a day with barley bedding straw given every other day. pen B : 4 of which, 2x 9 month old steers, 1 x Cow and...

I'm hoping they'll be some debate over this. There certainly is in my neck of the woods. If you're feeding small bale hay to 2-4yr old cows and heifers, how much would you give them per day? 1/2 a bale, 3/4? Obviously it depends on the quality of hay, so for the sake of argument, lets say good quali...

Thanks Jac, totally understand. I'm awash with different numbers. Very helpful.
A

Rob R, thanks also for your comments. I've heard of some Dexters being slaughtered at 18months rather than the average mentioned by Boofarm of 28months. I have two 6 month old steers which I was intending to sell this time next year. Is there any benefit in selling earlier, i.e a better quality meat...