I'm going to copy a note I sent to SousJo via PM earlier...
One thing I was going to say about Dexters... their bulls are rarely dangerous. Not that you don't treat them with respect, but we sold a 5 year old bull we could still lead around by the neck chain...even if there was a cow in heat!
One idea... while we did AI our Dexters, as hubby was a professional AI technician for about 10 years, semen costs are getting ridiculous in the breed, and there simply is no beating a good bull for conception rates. BB King, the bull I mentioned above, was born in September. When he was 8 months old, he got 7 cows pregnant within 2 weeks! The next spring, he got the entire herd pregnant, again within 3 weeks. He had 100% conception 3 years in a row!
We currently are using a 4 year old bull we bought as a yearling, and then sold to a neighbor near our new place once our three cows were pregnant. We borrow him in the Spring, then return him after a month. It has worked out really well.
But what I suggest to people who only have a few (or one!) cows... it can be really hard to get a single animal bred, as finding them in standing heat is tricky, is this...
Buy a weanling bull calf. Well bred, if at all possible, but at least good conformation and disposition. Use him for 2 years on your animals... or even longer, if he doesn't sire a heifer who can't be bred to him. Then, either sell him as a proven sire, or castrate him (banding or an emasculator work well, but make sure you give tetanus vaccine 10 days before!) and finish him for beef.
If you getva reasonable price on the bull calf, you can pretty well breed your cows for the cost of feeding him. And if you out him in your freezer, even that is (somewhat) covered.
If you buy a weanling in the fall. He can breed cows the following Spring, and you could even castrate him after his first season, and finish him for that fall. We hung 2 steers last fall... 16 months and 18 months. They weighed (hanging) 320# and 330#. We do feed some cornmeal for a couple months at the end, to get good marbling and "finish". Most people who claim they want grass fed and finished beef have never actually eaten any!
A cool story about a Dexter bull...
An internet friend from pre Y2k had a 10 year old Dexter bull he'd owned from babyhood. He also had a huge, 4 year old Charolais bull, which had a mean streak. One day, the Charolais blindsided him while he was latching the gate, breaking several ribs. He was on the ground, trying to catch his breath and get to a place he could roll under the fence, knowing if the bull caught him he was going to die. The bull charged him again, and he still wasn't able to get away. Just before it reached him... suddenly it was gone.
His Dexter bull had come running, hit the huge Charolais (easily twice the size and weight as the Dexter), solidly in the ribs and knocked him a good ten feet away from the rancher. The little bull then stepped carefully over him and stood over him, guarding and protecting him until he was able to gather his strength and crawl far enough to roll under the fence. The Dexter stayed between him and the big bull every step of the way.
As far as coyotes... not a problem. The calves definitely can very vulnerable... they weigh between 25# and 50#... the biggest we ever had weighed 66#, and he looked HUGE. (Which was funny, because we had some Ayrshire calves that hit 137#!) But the cows are super protective.
We had some with horns, although we dehorned all our calves after the first few years.(I was gored in the thigh, missing my femoral artery by 1/2", by a crazy Dexter cow we called the Anarchist. And I once had to stitch a cow up who had been given... quite literally... a second vulva and anus by a horn! Nasty!)
But early on, while we were building a new barn, we outwintered some Ayrshire yearlings. They started being hunted and hassled by a pack of wild dogs... a couple big German Shepherds and 4 or 5 other mutts. No one knew where they came from, and they were like ghosts... almost impossible to get a shot at them. One night, they ran the entire herd of 12 yearlings through a brand new 5 bar gate... turned it into a pretzel.
We pulled them in, and put the 8 Dexters out. Three days later, we went out to check on them, and there were dog tracks everywhere. As well as several large puddles of blood. Worried, we tracked the cows down in the woods... not a mark on any of them! One had blood on her horns. We never saw the dogs again!
Also, our Amish hired hand decided to walk through our fields one evening, hunting woodchucks on his way home. He was crossing the pasture when the Dexters (who had several small calves) noticed him. They immediately formed a group, with the babies in the center, then charged him. He had to shoot into the ground ahead of them to stop them! Apparently, they didn't recognize him in the late afternoon light, because they should have known him! Let's just say, we don't worry much about rustlers..restless...
Summerthyme
