Birth Notifications

[Rob R]

I was just wondering, can non-members birth notify cattle, as they are free? Personally I think transfers should be free too, to encourage more people to join the society and breed pedigree, at the moment it just seems to be a plethora of charges.

[Ted Neal]

At a recent "Council On Tour" neeting the question of finance was raised and if I remember correctly the Society coffers contains something around £160 per member.
It was also pointed out to Council that the Dexter Beef Certification costs had been met by membership but Council felt we members would undervalue it if we didn't have to pay for it! Now I don't mind paying for labels but talk about a money making machine!!! What help do we get? This would be a brilliant scheme and offer a good reason to join. I have suggested to our group that we take the £500 per annum the Society is giving us and we register our members in the scheme - for what better way to promote Dexters than through the end product?
A few years ago the Red Poll Cattle Society offered female registrations for £1 to try and get as many bloodlines back into the Herd Book. It was an amazing success as they ended up with a greater amount of money in registration fees than in previous years and did enormous good for the breed itself.
Just as a side issue I recently found a letter from the late David Key who was Secretary when I joined the Society replying to a letter of mine suggesting that members are charged postage on their annual Herd Book. He said that this was against the Constitution and fully paid up members would continue to receive a free herd book. I think you would call that a benefit!

[Rob R]

It does seem to me that the current fee structure is trying to be all encompassing but benefitting noone. Larger herds have the advantage of spreading the fixed cost of membership over many cows, but are then hit with the high cost of registering and transferring animals. Meanwhile, people who want to keep a few cows as a hobby have the significant costs of membership, herdbooks and joining fees, before they even buy any cows, to spread over a small number of animals.

A reduced membership fee for those with, say, fewer than 10 breeding females, would draw more smaller breeders in. Or, with lower admin costs, members could be given a number of transfers and registrations 'free' with the membership fees each year. For the larger herds, reduced fees for registrations and transfers would stop the loss of more commercial pedigree herds.

There just seems to be a lot of non-pedigree pedigree animals out there.

[SteveM]

i would think you could also encourage membership if females could be registered upto breeding age, without excessive charges.

not all females are destined for breeding and for an animal destined for beef the registration fee is wasted money.

At the end of the day the animals the same and the beef tastes as good whether the animal or herd are registered or not.

[Rob R]

I concur. 30 days is a very short period of time in which to decide whether an animal is worth breeding from, and probably contributes to both the number of good quality females left unregistered and some rubbish being bred from 'because you've paid for a certificate'.

[Robert & Alison Kirk]

We register most of our females; with just one or two being birth notified only. Thank goodness we do register females,having just lost a lovely 24 month old in calf heifer to TB and a payment on its way for £2,113; a few days earlier she would have been under 24 months and we would have received £1600. Had she not been registered the payment would have been commercial rate of £1,002. As DCS members our steers have all been birth notified, but this makes no difference to the compensation rate as we still receive commercial rate compensation for them.

In real terms the higher rate of compensation is not great as this particular heifer would hopefully have gone on to breed some 10 plus calves and her excellent bloodlines remain in the herd through some of the female calves.

Personally if you want to have pedigree stock whatever the breed, it's worth being a member of the relevant Society.

Alison Kirk
Boram Dexters

[Rob R]

Personally if you want to have pedigree stock whatever the breed, it's worth being a member of the relevant Society.

Alison Kirk
Boram Dexters

The trouble is that not everyone does, and while that might not affect us in the short term, in the longer term good quality pedigree animals are being bought by people who are put off maintaining the pedigree lines because of the fee structure.

What prompted me to post this was a recent conversation with someone selling pedigree but unregistered stock. I was about to tell that that it does pay to breed pedigree, even with the fees, but when I checked the most recent rare breeds sale catalogue I found that the average maiden heifer price for registered stock was 173.25gn for an average age of 16.25 months, while unregistered were 188gn for 14.9months. That's an extra 1.96gn per month of age for un-registered stock, and I had nothing more I could say to them to justify the expense other than my desire to see their stock registered.

[Robert & Alison Kirk]

Morning Rob, By registering/birth notifying our Dexters we are able to prove the provenance of the beef. When selling through the Traditional Breed Meat Marketing scheme we have to state the sire and dam on a form, both of which have to be registered with the DCS.

Take a look at other native breed cattle societies websites and you will see the charges levied by the DCS compare favourably.

The prices below are appalling and I would say they are at best cull values. I am aware of the low prices Dexters are being sold for, more especially so at the specialist sales.

Having attended a local rare breeds show and sale on two or three occasions, some of the Dexters forward have been very poor in condition. Look at the other native breeds on sale and for some reason it always seems to be that if there are badly turned out, poor in condition/lacking conformation to breed standard animals it is usually the Dexters.

There are many very responsible breeders who present their animals to a high standard, but until this is consistent at all sales with every animal I don't think Dexters will ever achieve their true value in the sale ring.

Alison Kirk
Boram Dexters

[Rob R]

The thing is, the Dexter breed is activey marketed as a smallholders breed and good for people starting out with cattle, I take issue with for various reasons, but that's not relevant here. But anyway, as a result there are a greater proportion of buyers, compared to other breeds, who just want a few animals to keep the grass down and provide some beef for the freezer. I'm relaying their experience.

Transfer of ownership currently costs twice as much for non-members as members - who in their right mind is going to transfer animals as a non-member? They're either going to join or not bother at all. If transfers were free it would help draw people into the society and maintain records for those pedigree animals that are otherwise 'lost' to the herdbook.

As important as better presentation is, I don't think that alone is enough to increase the value of animals at sale - there has to be a market there. If you've looked at the website, as a smallholder who just wants a couple of animals, you're looking at £75 to set up a pedigree herd, plus £22 to transfer the animals. A small allowance of free transfers and registrations within the pedigree fees would welcome these herds more and probably encourage them to retain pedigree IMO.

[Robert & Alison Kirk]

Hi Rob,

I don't what the answer is to increase the value at sales. As an exercise, I did speak to Voyce Pullince Pullin at Cirencester Livestock Market recently and even though our cattle are grading at R4L or 0+4L/0-4L with weights of around 190kgs/200kgs d/w, they would still have difficulty selling them and would prefer not to have them.

The Belted Galloway Society has 500 members and their fees exceed those of the DCS as do other native breed societies.

Would be purchasers of Dexters do really need to do their homework before going into the breed and if they feel the DCS fees are too much; low prices for live animals at sales; finding a suitable market for beef then they should possibly consider a bigger native breed, when they may have the option of using the local livestock market and/or specialist sale.

There is a market for Dexter beef, but it requires hard work and much thought. Even though we have several outlets we are not complacent and always looking for new customers, which seem to come by word of mouth.

Even though Dexter beef generally is now well established with chefs, the live animal price is still too low but I am sure it is down to the breed size which limits buyers at rare breed sales.

Alison Kirk
Boram Dexters

[Rob R]

The thing is, no matter whether the prices are high or low overall, it was the pedigree stock that were lower than the non-pedigree. So, for an 'average' heifer of 12 months a pedigree would have been £134.32 whereas a non-pedigree would be £159.01. Add in the cost of transfer @ £10.98 and it comes to a difference of £35.67 less for a pedigree animal. (I don't want to get too diverted onto prices here, as I've given my opinion on the easiest way that could be achieved in other discussions, and I stand by those).

What the above suggests to me is that the overall 'quality' of non-pedigree stock was higher, on average. So the system we have in place is encouraging members to register lower quality stock than non-members are not registering, if that makes sense?

For what it's worth, I agree will all of the values of pedigree breeding and it is out of this that I frustrated by people who don't feel the need. It's not that I think pedigree registrations are not worth the cost, it's just that I think the society is sending out two very different messages. On the one hand the society has become much more 'professional' in recent years, more akin to some other modern breed societies, yet on the other it is still marketing the Dexter as a hobby breed.

We, as established pedigree herds, cannot force prospective breeders to do as we wish, at the end of the day they will go home and do as they like, but we can influence them if the right incentives are there and a consistent message is being given. As such the fee structure needs to benefit both groups, at the moment I'm not sure it's benefitting either group.

[ann]

I personally would like to see a cheaper obtain for people who registrar less than say 4 animals, junior members can register up to 4 animals for the membership cost of £5 so why can't we offer a similar type of membership to people who are registering possible only one, or two dexters a year.
Maybe it could be tagged onto an associate membership. I do think this way we might keep a few of the small herds on board and at least this would keep reg cattle on the herd book.

[Rob R]

I personally would like to see a cheaper obtain for people who registrar less than say 4 animals, junior members can register up to 4 animals for the membership cost of £5 so why can't we offer a similar type of membership to people who are registering possible only one, or two dexters a year.
Maybe it could be tagged onto an associate membership. I do think this way we might keep a few of the small herds on board and at least this would keep reg cattle on the herd book.

I've said that in the recent membership survey - hopefully more will have done, as a membership survey is all very well of gathering views of the memebership, but it misses out the views of potential members.