New Start Advice

[cairnhill]

We have just started our business this year based around a suckler herd of 120 Dexters and 20 Highlands. We got our first cattle in May and have quickly built up the numbers. We have had some excellent advice from other farmers. The breed is excellent at calving, very hardy and they seem to be taking well to the rough grazing. We are also going into conversion to organic production next year. The biggest issue for us and generally seems to be finding a good outlet for either finished animals or weaned calves. It does not seem like Dexters are well suited to markets especially in the Highlands of Scotland where Dexters are almost unknown. Does anyone have any advice?

[Jac]

Market research? Business plan? I'm sure Clive will be along shortly with some good advice.

[Mark Bowles]

A suckler herd of 120 is pretty big dexter wise, you say you have trouble selling finished and weaned stock, did you look into that before you bought your dexters?

[Broomcroft]

As you said cairnhill, they are great little cows, hard as nails and very maternal. Good choice IMO but the scale you are mentioning needs much thought.

If you have bought-in 120 Dexter sucklers you must have considered how you were going to sell your output, be it for breeding or meat, surely? Even if you haven't written anything down, you must have discussed between yourselves or have in your head something of a plan or ideas, even if just vaguely?

Could you tell us what your thoughts were (or are now)? It'd give us an idea of how you're inclined.

i.e. You might want to sell meat direct, go to farmers markets, open a farm shop, sell to restaurants, or just stick to farming and let someone else do the selling (like me now!). With 120 sucklers, will you have time to do anything else?

If you want to just farm, then I'd cross most of them to get a carcass acceptable in the general trade. Or put a Dexter bull to heifers and any shortie cows you have, and a Hereford/Angus/something like that to the non-short cows. Then you'll have less pure Dexters which may be difficult to shift (at a fair price at least), and the rest could go almost anywhere. The dexter cows will keep your costs very low.

[Jac]

Are you a Society member? If so, perhaps you should contact a member of the beef network committee the contact details are on the Society website.

[cairnhill]

I should have given you some more details about our plan. The land that we have is split into the following (approx):
550 Ha of Heathland/Rough Grazing
75 Ha Arable
100 Ha Improved Grassland

Most local farmers are choosing continental breeds and much af the Heathland has now been abandoned. Most of the land even some good grassland has not been farmed for 8 years. The fencing is patchy/almost non existant in some places.

We need animals that suit this environment, that are affordable and that work on a low input, extensive, organic system.

I would like to split the cattle into three groups:
1. A highland cattle group, cross with a luing bull, this should provide something suitable for the local market.
2. Have the largest group as Dexter cross, either Redpoll,Saler,Sussex. This should provided a suitable product for the main-stream market.
3. Keep a smaller group of the best Dexters as pure bred.

We have done a full business plan and was reviewed by our bank . We also had to do business plans and environment plans to get onto the organic scheme, so we do know the direction that we are planning. We are just starting out and we are interested in getting ideas from other farmers to see if our plans make sense or if there are pitfalls that we have not thought of.

[Jac]

Clearly there is a pitfall in your plan because you do not yet have a market for your finished Dexters and weaned calves. I know that the Dexter is ideally suited to your situation but if you cannot sell what you have produced (at a profit) you are in trouble.

[cairnhill]

We have done market research into selling organic beef to some large suppliers and we got a very good response. As you will be aware with organic conversion we have a number of years while we are in conversion so the produce will not be organic. We have however got a healthy forecast for the next few years. We will be making a profit, however like any business we would like to sell our produce for the best price and build up contacts and this was why I asked for others advice, not because I we have a flawed business model.

[Jac]

'The outlook for 2011 from the Soil Association is cautiously optimistic (well they would say that wouldn't they?) The biggest success stories were sales of organic beef (up 18%)'

The biggest issue for us and generally seems to be finding a good outlet for either finished animals or weaned calves.

But as you say, you are in conversion, you are confident of your future success but what about the here and now?

There is no established outlet for finished Dexters apart from in Ireland (on a large scale). A general observation is that many people sell their finished product as beef quite successfully. They have started with small numbers and developed their own markets as they have gone along.

[cairnhill]

It is not a big problem for us as we have half of the cattle in calf to a part charolais bull, which we had come concerns about but it seems to be working out well. Some are part red poll and some are in with a saler bull. We do have have some in with a dexter bull and we would like to keep some pure dexter, but perhaps it is better just going for cross bred cattle?

[Broomcroft]

What a fantastic project, I'd love to be doing what you're doing cairnhill.

Anyhow, with regards to crossing, and this is personal to our circumstances, we chose an Angus, so that we got meat that was well-marbled but didn't have too much fat. We avoided all the other old breeds that put on fat easily, such as Sussex, Red Ruby Devon for that reason. If there was such a thing, a small continental would have done well for us. But as I say, this is OUR circumstances and we are on lowland, highly nutritious grazing....he said confidently not looking out the window where we have been totally burned-out with hardly any rain this year at all! But on upland grazing sounds like your choices could be the right ones. I know for a fact that Red Ruby X Dexter works well and the beef is exceptional. Luing would be interesting.

The only difficulty we've encountered is that I can't put a big bull to the cross heifers at 15 months (we're 100% spring calving). They'd probably be OK, but personally I think they are just too small at 15 months. So I keep a small, stocky non-short Dexter bull, one that I know produces small calves even for Dexter, just for our cross heifers. I've also kept half my Dangus (Angus X Dexter) heifers back till they are 24 months, then they'll go to the big bull. I've done this just to see how much being put to a bull at 15 months holds them back as much as anything.

I have thought of keeping a Dangus bull back for the future. Maybe that would be the way to get a reasonable sized bull and keep to spring calving? Interesting that you are using a cross bull yourself. I'd be keen to know how that works out.

PS. A local vet did a project on me and my crosses, and a number of other "conventional" farms using the same criteria. My margins were through the roof; miles better than anyone elses. My output per animal was lower as they are smaller, but my low costs more than made up for it.

[davidw]

I'm aware that my comments may not win me a popularity contest but here goes.

I worked for a major international bank in assessing business plans from loan applicants. We required the applicants claim of a market to be substantiated by several letters of intent from the businesses potential customers. Unless the application included these letters of intent from credible customers, the business start-up loan was refused.

Beef from pure bred Dexters is a niche market product that customers actively request. Several producers in our area actually have a real problem in meeting the growing demand for 100% Dexter beef. But once it is crossed with part Charolais, Luing or anything else, it loses its niche market provenance and becomes supermarket commodity beef at commodity prices.

For me, Dexter Beef is from 100% accredited pure Dexter cattle, anything else is just beef.

[Broomcroft]

None of our beef goes to supermarkets David, it all goes to rare breed and local butchers. And we get exactly the same prices, but a higher amount per animal obviously. I personally prefer pure Dexter from steers (I don't rate heifer beef), but my wife prefers Red Ruby Devon X Dexter, and our main rare breed butchers favourite is Angus X Dexter. I'd say to breed pure on the scale being talked about for this one herd, would be very high risk. Not that it couldn't be done.

[cairnhill]

What a fantastic project, I'd love to be doing what you're doing cairnhill.

Thanks for your encouragement Clive. I have learned a lot from seeing what other farmers are doing. I like what you have done with cross breeding dexters and angus, I will need to look into Red Ruby, it is not a breed that I know much about.
I agree with you about not putting the heifers onto a bigger bull and that was one reason I want to keep a dexter bull. We are just at the start of our project but I am very interested to see what results we get from cross breeding. I really want to get an Dexter/Highland cross, I don't think it will work well commercially though.
It has been a really interesting challenge so far, and I think it is hard for people to understand our approach and hopefully we will prove that we have a viable model. Our big challenge is very different from lowland farms, we could double the number of cattle and still have plenty of summer grazing but we have ticks, two mile hikes to get to the cattle and no fences for miles on end! We also don't have many overheads with the land.

[Duncan MacIntyre]

It is probably rather daunting for any existing breeders of registered Dexters in Scotland to contemplate giving advice to someone with a herd of 120. I assume you mean 120 breeding females?

Currently there are only 237 Dexter females over the age of 2years registered in the whole of Scotland, spread between 33 herds with an average number of breeding females being just 7. So the rest of us are playing a rather different ball game.Many Scottish breeders will be able to distribute any beef between friends and family without any active marketing, and those who do sell commercially will naturally be a bit protective of their market which will only be very small scale.

However, there are signs that interest in Dexter beef in the UK is increasing, we have seen the Crossgar scheme take off and there are rumours of other large commercial groups showing interest in pure Dexter beef. I would urge you to join the Dexter Society if you are not already a member and keep your cows registered, as proper verification of breed will be necessary for any formal Dexter marketing scheme. It is very important to keep the price margin which Dexter beef can rightly command due to the quality. Ideally we should build in some production standards - not necessarily full organic status but certainly firmlyin the grass fed and finished camp.

This may not help too much as an immediate solution, but I think that the near future will offer some significant changes. Distance from the main market is always a disadvantage of course, and one good reason to be sure we retain a price premium for Dexter beef.

At the moment the Scottish Dexter Group is not very active, but I hope it may be able to be resuscitated following the issue of the revised constitution for groups being prepared by the Dexter Cattle Society. In the meantime quite a number of Scottish and North of England dexter breeders are members of an email group, and if you would like to joint this email me at duncan.macintyre@btopenworld.com and I will add you name. The DCS also has 3 field advisors in Scotland - Jo Kemp near Dumfries, myself on Bute, and Jenny MacLennan near Dingwall.

As far as results of selling on the open market go, it generally is the case that pure Dexter calves or yearlings do not do very well, but cross animals can. They have been crossed with all sorts, mostly Limousins or Angus, and a few with Luing. Interestingly, though not exactly statistically significant, was the sale a year or so ago in Ayr of Luing x Dexter and pure Luing calves, reared exactly the same way, but the Dexter cross weighed more and got more per kilo than the pure Luings. Due, I suppose, to the better milk supply of the Dexter mother. But you will need to use other breeds with caution if you want to avoid calving difficulties.

Hope this helps

Duncan