cattle breeds: Dexter/Jersey cross

This handsome boy is Prince Charles, our Dexter bull.

We've been breeding Dexter blood into our Jersey cows for six years now, and the success of the experiment is becoming more and more evident.

Prince Charles -- all grass, always in the open field, all year, late winter now -- and just look at his condition.

We're now milking and grazing Jersey/Dexter cross cows with a smaller, compact body size, nice teats well-placed on the udder, good milk production with a generous cream line, and persistent, extended lactation (some Dexter herds we see online are reported to go dry in the winter).

This winter we notice something else: improved forage utilization. Actually, we noticed it last winter too -- well-muscled, high body condition cows with thick, sparkling fur all winter long -- but this year we're seeing something more. Really, we can thank the long period of snow and ice (we're going on five weeks now) for revealing this point.

Because we've fed hay for almost three weeks now (if we put the cows on paddocks right now, they would trample more than they ate), we're noticing how well the cows are doing on first cutting squares, and how little hay they are requiring. Metering out hay to cows in winter is no fun; balancing keeping rumens full and cows warm with husbanding his/her stock of hay leaves the farmer feeling not quite satisfied on either account, or at least so we would have said at one time. These Dex/Jersey cross animals are changing that story, though. They're eating every scrap of hay we're giving them, twiggy bits, long woody stems and all, and they're holding condition. Even those animals with a stress on them -- the smallest, the youngest heifer with the greediest calves -- are doing well and holding their flesh.

We are really excited to see how successful this breeding program is turning out to be.