Another one of those

We just got ourselves a steer last Friday .  Another Dexter.  As mentioned in my earlier post dexters are a smaller breed of cattle and are good for people with smaller acreage.  And for those who don't know what a steer is, steer is a less manly aka castrated bull.  Before I started getting into this whole farm thing I thought all cattle are just called cows.  Who would have thought they actually have a lot of different names for them?!  So for example steer as mentioned above is the castrsted bull, then bull of course means a male cattle, cow is a female cow. But why can't people just say castrsted cow and not come up with a different name, like steer for them?! Is it just to confuse people?!   Oh and then there's heifer and that means cows that have not had babies, and cows are just female cows who have had babies.

Well anyway, so the steer (you should know by now a steer is a castrsted bull!) we just picked up yesterday is just 6 months old.  So he's still kind of cute.  I decided to name him Ribeye and there was no objection from hubby and kids. 

And we shall call you Ribeye

He's only 6 months old so if we grass feed him only then he should be ready for butchering in another 18 months or so.  If they are grass fed only, which we intend to do, then you will get the best yield and still get good meat if butchered at 24 months.

Welcome to your new home, Ribeye

Another fact about Dexter is that if you are going to get dexters for the purpose of breeding then you probably want to get a registered one.  Registered Dexter is a lot more expensive than the non-registered ones.  Reason being the registered dexters have gone through DNA testing and are cleared of having certain genetic disorders that dexters are known to have.  With this particular breed of cattle they are known to have chondrodysplasia (chondro) and pulmonary Hypoplasia with Anasarca (PHA).  Chondro is a "Genetic mutation that causes defective bone growth...and it results in the animals appearing heavy bodied of short legs."  So basically it's some kind of dwarfism.  

The other one PHA is a little bit more serious.  PHA "indicates incomplete formation of the lungs. Anasarca indicates an accumulation of fluids in tissues and body cavities. PHA-affected calf may be tremendously swollen which would make delivery exceedingly difficult and potentially life threatening for the cow."  So basically the fetus and the mama cow could both die. 

So this is the little bit of knowledge that I have of dexters for those who might be interested in getting dexters.

Exploring his new home