Wet weekend here...

Some earlier photos:

The World's Smartest Cow

I've known Dexters just like Elvis only they didn't eat as much as this fun lovin' Brown Swiss steer.

What my steer, Elvis, has taught me.

Cows join cars in ethanol line

By Jenni Glenn - The Journal Gazette

The ethanol plants being built in Wells County and other locations around Indiana will produce more than vehicle fuel.

Manufacturing ethanol also creates a byproduct that can be used to feed livestock. Adding that byproduct – called distillers’ grain – to a dairy cow’s diet can encourage the animal to eat more and produce more milk, a dairy science professor told the audience at the Tri-State Dairy Nutrition Conference on Wednesday.

About 470 people attended the two-day conference at Grand Wayne Center, organizers said. Purdue University hosted the event with Ohio State University and Michigan State University.

Continue... Professor touts fuel byproduct as livestock feed

Mad cow protein found to have a sane side

It helps make brain cells
Harvard News Office
Jeffrey Macklis (center), Jason Emsley (right), and Hande Ozdinler are part of a team that found why humans carry in their heads the protein that causes a variation of mad cow disease. Now they are working on what to do about it. (Staff photo Maggie Mastricola/Harvard News Office)

Unmad cow

By Lester Haines

Chinese scientists have successfully cloned a cow "with gene cells resistant to mad cow disease", reports Xinhua news agency via Reuters. The 55kg calf, born in the eastern province of Shandong, was cloned from cells of an adult cow and carries transplanted genetic material conferring the resistance to bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

Professors Dong Yajuan and Bo Xuejin of Shandong's Laiyang Agro-Science Institute collaborated with a Japanese university on the project. The new arrival is another breakthrough for the pair - back in 2001 they produced China's first cloned cow.

Chinese state television does, however, sound a note of warning with the statement that "further tests would be required on the calf as it grows to verify the effectiveness of the transplanted genes".

Age of cattle

[Age of cattle facts and details]

The age of the ox or cow is told chiefly by the teeth and less perfectly by the horns. The temporary teeth are in part through at birth, and all the incisors are through in twenty days; the first, second and third pairs of temporary molars are through in thirty days; the teeth have grown large enough to touch each other by the sixth month; they gradually wear and fall in eighteen months; the fourth permanent molars are through at the fourth month; the fifth at the fifteenth; the sixth at two years. The temporary teeth begin to fall at twenty-one months, and are entirely replaced by the thirtyninth to the forty-fifth month. The development is quite complete at from five to six years. At that time the border of the incisors has been worn away a little below the level of the grinders. At six years, are beginning to wear, and are on a level with the incisors. At eight years, the wear of the first grinders is very apparent. At ten or eleven years, used surfaces of the teeth begin to bear a square mark surrounded by a white line, and this is pronounced on all the teeth by the twelfth year; between the twelfth and the fourteenth year this mark takes a round form. The rings on the horns are less useful as guides. At ten or twelve months the first ring appears; at twenty months to two years the second; at thirty to thirty-two months the third ring, at forty to forty-six months the fourth ring, at fifty four to sixty months the fifth ring, and so on. But, at the fifth year, the three first rings are indistinguishable, and at the eighth year all the rings. Besides, the dealers file the horns.

This is an extract from The Household Cyclopedia of General Information, 1881. The methods described may therefore be out of date.

"Cows, Tails, & Trails"

I received a tip about a book, "Cows, Tails, and Trails" that looks interesting. The description reads:

"Frank Lloyd Wright once asked, “Has anyone sung the song of the patient, calf-bearing, milk-flowing, cud-chewing, tail-twitching cow?” Not until Cow Tails & Trails, Frank. This lighthearted but informative book is packed with North American cow facts, lore, and trivia. Both dairy and beef cows are thoroughly discussed and illustrated in large format color photographs and charming period paintings. Classic cow stories, historic cattle drives and trails, the development of cows, cheeses and other cow products are artfully herded together in a celebration of everything bovine."

Some of the fun facts:

"There are approximately 96 million cattle in the USA
A mature beef cow can produce 75 pounds of manure a day (!) A mature dairy cow 115 pounds a day (!!)
There are over 900 different breeds of domestic cattle throughout the world."

A photo of a horned black bull represents the Dexter breed:

"A rare breed in the United States, the tiny but tough Dexter is one of the smallest breeds in the world. They originated in the southern part of Ireland and are believed to be a cross of the Kerry and some other breed. Used for both diary and beef, the Dexter is often called the ideal family cow because of its small size (mature bulls weigh less that 1,000 pounds and measure 38 to 44 inches at the shoulder, while cows weigh less than 750 pounds and measure 36 to 42 inches)."

"Cows, Tails, & Trails" is published by Willow Creek Press.

Wikipedia

Check out Dexter Cattle on Wikipedia.

Cute calves from a farm near Little Falls, New York in 2005.

Happy Earth Day!

Fun facts

Moo Tube

The Cow Cam (Flash)

Dexter Colors

Gabriella Nanci has a good article on her website about Dexter Colors.

Also, on the UK Discussion Board Duncan MacIntyre makes a valiant effort in trying to explain simply the various genetic combinations with Color Inheritance.

Several years ago I was at a cattle show and I don't remember the cattle breed but I commented to the breeder about his dun cow. He kind of looked at me like I was crazy because as it turned out with his breed, although having the same appearance as a Dexter dun, their breed of cattle were considered either black or red. Red being the same as brown much as it was originally with Dexters. I believe that it was in 1978 that the UK made the distinction between dun and red as being separate colors and then the states followed about 10 years later. It took another 10 years for when color was added to the breed publication in 1998. Soon afterwards photos on the internet started to become more popular. Early on, unless they had happened to come across the colors in person or knew the color background of a few lines a lot of breeders weren't sure whether their Dexters were red or dun. Many of what had been originally registered as red were really dun and so /dun was added to the registrations. Now there's more live colored Dexters to view and pictures of red and dun Dexters as well as testing available to determine the color. If you're old enough to remember black and white television then you'll have some idea of the difficulty of differentiating between colors in the past.

Irish Dexter bull?

While white was introduced with the early Dexters, I strongly suspect that the as advertised Mini Irish Dexter bull in this advertisement has been crossed with something else. Breed guidelines suggest Dexters should be whole black, dun, or red, with a little white on the underline to the umbilical as well as a few white hairs in the tassle of the tail permissable. Excessive white should be avoided and when buying beware of the rare and unusual.

PDCA Advertising Agreement

Hovey Williams LLP has just completed drawing up the PDCA's new advertising agreement. Information as well as the agreement will be in the summer issue of the Record but essentially this provides the association with a standard terms of agreement necessary these days with advertising. Somewhat like the terms of agreement one agrees to when accepting software from Microsoft. The PDCA received some excellent advice and professional assistance with constructing a proper agreement for their breed publications. This further clarifies and defines the responsibility of advertising in a more legal and thorough way.

Google top three Dexter listings...

...when I typed in dexter cattle this is what came up today:

Pacific Flying Club
Accredited flight training centre, equipped with a flight simulator and licensed maintenance facility. Provides pricing and available aircraft listings.
www.dextercattle.org/ - 26k - Cached - Similar pages

Dexter Cattle Society Website
Official Dexter Cattle Society Website for the UK.
www.dextercattle.co.uk/ - 15k - Cached - Similar pages

Purebred Dexter Cattle Association
Dexter cattle association official website and registry. Members of Purebred Dexter Cattle Association, PDCA.
www.purebreddextercattle.org/ - 17k - Cached - Similar pages

Rare Breeds Show & Sale

Click on poster for larger view.

Happy Easter!

Good Mothers

Good Friday - the latest addition

A dun heifer calf's first morning...

Cows come home...

Cows come home in udderly odd exhibit

Watching Oprah: Too Much TV, by Mark Jones, shows cows quickly become bored with television.

Vintage Dexter Photos

Linda Reeve, before recently dodging storms in Tennessee, came across and purchased these early Dexter photos from ebay. The Compton Dexter cow would have been from the Duchess of Devonshire's award winning herd.


Top photo caption - DEXTER BULL - "COWBRIDGE GENERAL"
Winner of 1st prize and championship, Royal Lancs. And Sussex County Shows, 1908. (photo by G.H. Parsons)
Bottom photo caption - DEXTER COW - "COMPTON DOB"
1st R.A.S.E. Show, 1905, and winner of many championships. (photo by G.H. Parsons)

'What a cow of an idea'

Australia -

'Raynelle, the milking cow rain-gauge, will create a storm of amusement at the Sydney Royal Easter Show'

Dun Dexter Nose

The common dun nose color is often described as gray or pinkish. When I was taking some pictures yesterday I wasn't planning on taking a closeup of a dun nose but those of you that have Dexters know how curious they can be. So here's a photo of a dun Dexter steer's nose.

Different Generations

Dun Dexter Bull & Calf

Calf Facts

Attica Veterinary Associates Calf Facts by Sam Leadley.

Enjoying the sun

Dun Dexter Bull Calf

"Mini Minah Libby"

Revival in interest in cattle at 2006 Show
Lithgow Mercury

'The stud section of cattle at Lithgow show had a great turn up with some 34 head of cattle from both small and large breeds competing.

Quality representatives from a variety of breeds from the small Low Lines, Dexters and Highlanders to the somewhat larger Simmentals, Limosins, Charolais and Fleckvieh were on display.

The overall Grand Champion was taken out by Saun Jenkins from Rydal with his Charolais bull "Violet Hills Zambo" WHICH also won the Lithgow Council Award for Supreme Exhibit.

The Xstrata Coal award for Champion Small Breed was won by Peter Wakeling from Mudgee with his Dexter cow "Mini Minah Libby".

The show ring was somewhat crowded when the class of 'a pair of heifers' was judged with eight pairs, 16 animals being judged at the same time.

It was a great display.'

The Calf Path

One day, through the primeval wood,
A calf walked home, as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.
Since then two hundred years have fled,
And, I infer, the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.

The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bell-wether sheep
Pursued the trail o’er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him too,
As good bell-wethers always do.

And from that day o’er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made;
And many men wound in and out,
And dogged and turned and bent about
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because ‘twas such a crooked path.
But still they followed – do not laugh –
The first migrations of that calf,
And through this winding wood-way stalked,
Because he wobbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane,
That bent and turned and turned again,
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And travelled some three miles in one,
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.

The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street;
And this before men were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare,
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.

Each day a hundred thousand rout,
Followed this zig-zag calf about;
And o’er crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.

A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead,
They followed still his crooked way,
And lost one hundred years a day;
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.

A moral lesson this might teach,
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-paths of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun,
To do what other men have done.

They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do,
They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move.

And how the wise old wood-gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf;
Ah! Many things this tale might teach
But I am not ordained to preach.

-- Sam Walker Foss, (1895)

'Spice up sex with cheese'

SUN - UK

'CHEESE can boost your sex life, help beat stress and act as a painkiller, experts claimed yesterday.

It contains natural chemical phenylethylamine (PEA) which releases endorphins — or “happy hormones” — into the body, says a British Cheese Association study.

Cheese has ten times more PEA than chocolate.

The study says “a matchbox-sized bit of cheese a day helps boost calcium intake and provides happy hormones”.'

Beef HQ

Lots of recipes and anything "beef" at Beef Headquarters.

Daylight Saving Time

'Today is the beginning of Daylight Saving Time, time for moving the clocks one hour ahead. With a few exceptions (Arizona, Hawaii, part of Indiana, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and American Samoa), we've been doing this clock changing every April since 1967. Credit for Daylight Saving Time belongs to Benjamin Franklin, who first suggested the idea in 1784. The idea was revived in 1907, when William Willett, an Englishman, proposed a similar system in the pamphlet The Waste of Daylight. The Germans were the first to officially adopt the light-extending system in 1915 as a fuel-saving measure during World War I. The British switched one year later, and the United States followed in 1918, when Congress passed the Standard Time Act, which established our time zones. This experiment lasted only until 1920, when the law was repealed due to opposition from dairy farmers (cows don't pay attention to clocks). During World War II, Daylight Saving Time was imposed once again (this time year-round) to save fuel. With various modifications to the dates (the most recent being in 1987, when the starting date was changed to the first Sunday in April), we've been observing Daylight Saving Time ever since.' -- Old Farmer's Almanac

Spaghetti Farmers

Happy April Fool's Day!
Photo - Medgadget.com