Thanks everyone . I think we established that noone is currently milking dexters which greatly surprises me. i know of 3 herds locally milking Kerrys one for icecream ,one for cheese and one commercially producing milk.
Duncan , Apologies for delay in responding but I would suggest yoga
dairying
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Louisa Gidney
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Our intention has always been to milk, to produce all our dairy needs with enough to give to family and neighbours/friends.
A forum I'm on for 'sustainable living, preserving' has a few dexter breeders, looking at the dexter in the same way... more lifestyle than commercial and it's seems a growing number of people are looking at their food(s).
When we start we hope to have the milk tested and measure amounts so we can sell our cows as 'housecows' which we think will be a niche market that the dexter can fill better than any other breed. With good milk and quality beef you can't go wrong I think.
:D
Vicki
A forum I'm on for 'sustainable living, preserving' has a few dexter breeders, looking at the dexter in the same way... more lifestyle than commercial and it's seems a growing number of people are looking at their food(s).
When we start we hope to have the milk tested and measure amounts so we can sell our cows as 'housecows' which we think will be a niche market that the dexter can fill better than any other breed. With good milk and quality beef you can't go wrong I think.
:D
Vicki
if you do milk any of your dexters it can be very interesting to find that different lines have different milk qualities even though they are fed on the same food. I started of with very milky cows over 20 years ago and for many years I doubled suckled and yes the cows did get a small amount of corn feed as this was a reward for coming in and standing still, but even if they had not been given any hard food they would still have been able to feed their own calves plus a commercial as eventually most cows would accept the other calf and both calves could be turned out with the cow. Many generations on I still have cows capable of feeding two calves and in many cases I have to restrict their food intact if they calve in the summer other wise because they produce so much milk they are prone to mastitis. Before i owned a bull i did use AI and some of the heifer calves from certain bulls did not retain the high butter fat content I have in some lines. I also don't think enough importance is given to teat placements and shape when bulls are choosen, IMHO the dam and grand dam of any bull should have a good udder, I can't think of anything worse than a 10 yr old cow with carrot shaped teats and an udder nearly on the floor, and unless it is possible to check out the bulls ancestors, only the people breeding bulls or inspecting them can be critical when they choose to keep a bull calf or pass one on the scheme 
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119-1233441394
Hi Duncan,
What do you mean by a " good bit of concentrate"? We have 2 dexters for home milk, have had a jersey for 30 years, switched to dexter in the last 2 years for appropriateness of size, output, input, healthiness (...)
We also have a commercial grain mill (for human feed), so have waste grain bran, oat hulls, buckwheat hulls, wheat heads - raise any red flags?
What do you mean by a " good bit of concentrate"? We have 2 dexters for home milk, have had a jersey for 30 years, switched to dexter in the last 2 years for appropriateness of size, output, input, healthiness (...)
We also have a commercial grain mill (for human feed), so have waste grain bran, oat hulls, buckwheat hulls, wheat heads - raise any red flags?
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Duncan MacIntyre
- Posts: 2372
- Joined: Tue Mar 30, 2004 12:38 am
- Location: Isle of Bute, Scotland, UK
I used 16% dairy cake, with extra magnesium in summer, and fed anything up to 5kg or maybe more daily. The old rule of thumb was 4lb per gallon.
I would be wary of using part grains such as bran as a substantial part of feeding as you may upset the balance of diet - eg high phospate content may throw the Ca:P ratio all wrong.
If you want to get good milk yields then you need to feed well. I know a dexter will survive on very little, but not on nothing, and if you want output you have to have input. At the end of the day they do eat less than bigger breeds and I think they can produce milk quite efficiently compared to modern dairy cows.
Duncan
I would be wary of using part grains such as bran as a substantial part of feeding as you may upset the balance of diet - eg high phospate content may throw the Ca:P ratio all wrong.
If you want to get good milk yields then you need to feed well. I know a dexter will survive on very little, but not on nothing, and if you want output you have to have input. At the end of the day they do eat less than bigger breeds and I think they can produce milk quite efficiently compared to modern dairy cows.
Duncan
Duncan MacIntyre
Burnside Dexters 00316
Burnside
Ascog
Isle of Bute
Burnside Dexters 00316
Burnside
Ascog
Isle of Bute
Quite right Ann, the dam and granddam of a bull is VERY important. After all, its his daughters that we're interested in.
For my part though, I'm not interested in fostering extra calves onto my cows (we've got 20 cows at the moment) as its too much like hard work. I'm more interested in a good shape of udder and teats, with good ligaments that will stand up to years of abuse from calves, who will transform as much feed as necessary to grow a good calf. I don't want a huge dairy sized udder that gets in the way of her walking around our hills. I do need her to consistantly produce milk from whatever pasture we can manage to provide for her, so that she can grow her calf well, yet not lose too much condition in the process, so she can go into Winter with a good amount of weight on her. She needs to have a good constitution to do all that on our hills and the cows that couldn't cut the mustard got sold to farms with better pastures than we have.
Hopefully we'll be left with a herd of good doers, whose offspring will perform even better on good grazing. Foremost on my needs list is that they can cope with the conditions on our farm. Some bloodlines can and some can't. Thankfully we've got enough variation and numbers in our herd that I can pick and choose.
For my part though, I'm not interested in fostering extra calves onto my cows (we've got 20 cows at the moment) as its too much like hard work. I'm more interested in a good shape of udder and teats, with good ligaments that will stand up to years of abuse from calves, who will transform as much feed as necessary to grow a good calf. I don't want a huge dairy sized udder that gets in the way of her walking around our hills. I do need her to consistantly produce milk from whatever pasture we can manage to provide for her, so that she can grow her calf well, yet not lose too much condition in the process, so she can go into Winter with a good amount of weight on her. She needs to have a good constitution to do all that on our hills and the cows that couldn't cut the mustard got sold to farms with better pastures than we have.
Hopefully we'll be left with a herd of good doers, whose offspring will perform even better on good grazing. Foremost on my needs list is that they can cope with the conditions on our farm. Some bloodlines can and some can't. Thankfully we've got enough variation and numbers in our herd that I can pick and choose.
Inger
NZ
NZ