Posted by Rod Metcalfe on February 16, 2004 at 19:01:46:
In Reply to: Compulsory Bull Inspections ? posted by Kate Reed on February 10, 2004 at 21:40:14:
I find this subject fascinating because it is at the heart of two key UK Dexter issues.First what kind of Society do we want? - should there be strong and prescriptive central direction or should we have a looser,more decentralised organisation or perhaps a mix of both?Anyway I do not want to go down that road but take the road to the second issue ie the strength and weakness of the breed - its diversity.
A Charalais bull inspector is clear what he is looking for - conformation,measured weight gain and potency.That is because it is a purely commercial breed raised for the most economic production of beef possible.
Now what is a Dexter inspector to look for? The breed has at least four separate functions - commercial, environmental,lifestyle(recreational),and diary.
Sure the inspector can work on the negatives - the visible faults - but what about the positives; what attributes is he to focus on,beefyness for commercial?hardyness for environmental?temperament or showiness for lifestyle?or milk producing potential for diary?
And does he go for traditional Dexters with horns and or a more modern type perhaps naturally polled and with better beef producing properties etc?? I could go on with conflicting choices but you will get my drift.
A couple of years ago my solution would have been to say that whatever its use the breed's backbone is beef and that should be the crieria against which to judge/inspect.I would have called for the commercial beef producers to have a book of DNAed,inspected beef bulls with measured weight gain as a key element,This would give breeders, regardless of their use of Dexters, a nucleus of bulls that, given the will and the opportunity to use them, would give them a better chance of a decent carcass.As for all other bulls I would have recommended simply leaving it to the breeders with encouragement to call on someone like a field advisor to advice on faults and potential problems.
Now I am not so sure.It is a pity there are not more statistics but I suspect there are in fact very few dedicated beef producers today and that after decoupling there will be even fewer.Certainly too few to see through a beef focused bull scheme.So where does that leave us? I suspect in confused territory where Society resources should concentrate on helping/advising bull breeders rather than inspecting them.....what do you think??