Those are very reasonable prices for healthy, registered Dexter cows!

Are you familiar with cattle? If not, try to learn more before you buy some. I strongly recommend you read one or more of Heather Smith Thomas’ books about cattle. She is my cattle guru and I referred to her book, Storey’s Guide to Raising Beef Cattle all the time when I had my pet Highland steer, Frazer. Her latest book, Getting Started with Beef and Dairy Cattle, is written for cattle newbies—I wish I’d had it when Frazer was a calf!

Questions to ask could include:

• Are these cattle healthy? Do you offer any sort of health guarantee? You should also learn to inspect them for signs of disease and lameness, or ask your vet to examine them.
• Have they had any calving problems? Are they DNA tested? Has either of them, to your knowledge, produced a bulldog calf? For more information on bulldog calves and chrondodysplacia (it's a form of dwarfism) in Dexter cattle, be sure to read these articles before you buy: http://www.purebreddextercattle.org/Articles/ShortLongChondro.htm and http://www.dex-info.net/bulldog_calf.htm
• Do you have their registration papers so that I may examine them? If you want registered cattle, never accept an excuse like, “I’ve misplaced their papers but they’ll turn up” or “I can call the registry and get another set”. Maybe it’s true but—maybe not. Also, examine the papers carefully. Does the description match the animal you’re buying? And are the papers issued or transferred into the seller’s name? If not, he can’t transfer them to you and you might end up with unpapered cattle.
• Also make sure you’re comfortable with how tame they are. If you plan to milk them, milk each cow before buying (with the cow soon to freshen, at least get down next to her into a milking position to see how she reacts); it is no fun to deal with a cranky or frightened animal, especially one the size of even a small cow, at milking time. If you don’t plan to milk, can you easily handle them for routine procedures? If not, are you comfortable with that?

All in all, they sound like a good deal. I’m researching Dexters for a book I’m writing (Storey’s Guide to Raising Miniature Livestock) and I’d love to have Dexters of my own.

By the way, there are lots of great Dexter cattle educational Web sites. Check these out for starters!

American Dexter Cattle Association: http://www.dextercattle.org/

Purebred Dexter Cattle Association: http://www.purebreddextercattle.org/

Article collections:

http://www.dex-info.net/index.htm

http://www.purebreddextercattle.org/Articles.htm

http://www.dexters4u.com/Articles.htm

I also subscribe to a free Dexter cattle email group at YahooGroups and recommend you join. The people there are very friendly and gladly answer questions from interested newcomers. It’s at: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/DexterCattleADCA/

Enjoy!

Sue

6ncounting (5/18/2008)

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The verdict was out on this until we went and visited these fine girls. We bought them and it worked out that we got an added bonus, the 2yr old gave birth 2 hours after we bought her and thhe 5yr old is pregnant again. We got 5 for the price of 2.

Congratulations! I genuinely envy you--Dexters are marvelous cows. :o)))

Sue