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SMD Paycheck Ballan
The breed is maturing. It is moving well beyond being the Livestock Conservancy’s threatened or endangered breed list. As the breed matures, breeders will go through some important and challenging times. How we steward the breed to meet these challenges and navigate this transition will be critical in determining the long-term success and continued growth of Dexters into the 21st century.
A leading and predictive indicator in assessing how successfully we as a breed manage this transition is our approach to and the value we place upon the most
critical animal in every herd, the bull. How we select and use our bulls is vital for our breed’s continued growth and prosperity. That topic deserves its own time and due. However, for this post, the following step in that process is the focus: “Is the bull I am using a good bull?” I think it is nicely addressed by Hinman, in Dual-Pur-
pose Cattle p. 43-45, 1953.
“The bull question might be answered by saying that a good bull in any herd is one whose progeny more nearly approaches the ideal of the breeder than did the females with which he was mated. This presupposes that the breeder has an ideal; if he does not, he may be on his way, but he is going nowhere.”
SMD Sophie Ferl
Having an ideal in mind and then selecting and using those males that move your herd and will likely move others' herd toward that ideal is how we ultimately determine if any bull is a good bull. Implicit in this notion is that we are never certain a bull is a good bull until he’s been a bull.
Our approach as Dexter breeders toward initial selection and the ongoing evaluation of bulls is of critical importance. Our breed recognizes that these decisions are essential in breed improvement; however, the follow-on to those
decisions, bull values, suggests they are not being implemented successfully. The value placed upon our bulls is a key indicator of our success as a breed. This indicator does not point in a positive direction toward this point in our growth.
When mature registered bulls with proven results of excellence in progeny and production that move herds toward an ideal are offered for sale and, in some cases, sold for less than their value as ground beef, we have a problem. When yearling and coming two-year-old registered bulls are offered for sale and sold for less than their value as finished steers, we have a problem.
On the one hand, this situation points directly to the fact that as a breed our selection of calves to remain intact as potential bulls continue to be too broad. A breed growing in a healthy direction does not have registered bulls being sold for less than their beef value. Among commercial beef herds, an old rule of
thumb in determining how much to pay for a bull is generally 2 times the value of a fat steer or 4 to 5 times the value of a feeder calf. Using this algorithm, even in the worst-case scenario, that of a 2-year-old 1,000 lb. Dexter steer going to the sale barn and sold at a slaughter price of $85 per 100; the equation would indicate
$1,600 should be an expected price for an unproven Dexter bull and that for commercial production. However, given that the primary Dexter terminal market for beef is through farm-to-fork operations with a fat steer selling as hanging beef at $5 a pound (300 lbs. x $5 = $1,500) the Dexter bull price should be in the
$3,000 range. And again this bull price is for a 2-year-old, unproven, unregistered, production stock.
What, then is the additional value that should be included for a future herd sire in a registered herd from an established and provenen breeding program? Are these values being sought or received in the market for the most critical animal in any herd?
An examination of the values placed on bulls offered for sale generally and the values that bulls are being sold for suggests that neither side of the equation values bulls beyond their terminal market value and, in many cases, below that value. The breed is nearly universally undervaluing the genetics of those animals selected to remain registered seedstock bulls. This is not a good situation for our breed.
SMD Gracie Ballan
A part of the answer is the further development of sustainable, terminal production markets for Dexter stock. Thereby decreasing selection pressure to keep bull calves intact. But that is not the entire solution. We must continue to improve by only selecting and making available bulls that can improve toward a
specified ideal for succeeding generations from the cows to which they are bred. We must also value our genetics as offered through our bulls above the value of their carcass. We must insist upon that value worthy of a breeding and genetic selection program that reasonably assures an expected degree of quality, type, and production in progeny toward a specified ideal. So, how do we as a breed go about changing this situation?
Begin with Hinman’s warning to have an ideal we are moving toward. Then only select and offer the best bulls from the best females and sires that move our herd AND can potentially move others' herds toward that ideal. Then, if a bull is worthy of being a bull, value him as such. Offering breeding and genetics at bargain prices devalues your efforts and genetics. Ensure, as both a buyer and seller that you place the additional value that is due to proven sires that represent a higher probability of success in the future improvement of your herd.
SMD Ferl Certus
And finally, as you seek new bulls worthy of being a bull; identify breeders that select toward and have succeeded in moving their herds toward an ideal that is close to your own and that value their bulls as such
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Bargain or convenience hunting for bulls is a sure way to the breeder’s poor house. The “expense” of a bull is and should always be an investment in the future of our cattle herds.
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