Selfsufficientish.com

Hi people

I've seen links like this http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 547604.ece recently and everything about them seems suitable for my farm( and the environment. The only problem I can see is sourcing one in Hungary! Does anyone have any experience with them? Where could I buy one from? They seem too good to be true but it would be awesome for home-milk and beef(a rarity in Hungary)

Andy

Ooh dunno where you'll source them from, we have two jersey steers grazing our land and they're lovely and little, but we only want them as lawn mowers so not planning on eating them. The downside of owning grazing livestock is that in the winter the grass doesn't grow so then you have to buy hay in to keep them alive as we are having to do now for our two steers.

i dunno where you can get one from but may i suggest maybe a dexter or another small rarer breed dont mean to come across rude if i have i appologise but i dont support micro pigs or micro cows its just another one of mans genetic mods that the world could do with out . regards jim

Much of the newspaper article is a combination of hocum and faddishness.

Most Dexters I've seen, including the smallest, have been at least a metre high at the shoulder and weighed 300kg or so. They're small by cattle standards but they're still large animals.

I had calls from people wanting them when that story first appeared—even though breed pigs and not cattle. I mentioned one of the calls on my blog...

http://stonehead.wordpress.com/2008/08/ ... n-my-flat/

I completely dig your points Stonehead, I only used the paper article for references to make sure everyone understood what I was trying to say. Small cattle are definitely not small cuddly pets!

jimmyh1988 wrote:i dunno where you can get one from but may i suggest maybe a dexter or another small rarer breed dont mean to come across rude if i have i appologise but i dont support micro pigs or micro cows its just another one of mans genetic mods that the world could do with out . regards jim

I can't comment about micro pigs and I tend to agree with you about intensive breeding to produce smaller/bigger/fluffier/cuter animals, but I think you will find that the Dexter along with the Kerry are a breed that have been about for several thousand years and were "adopted" in Ireland as an ideal house cow for small farms and even smaller fields.
Not a genetically inbred animal but a naturally small breed.
Also horses for working small fields there is the Kerry bog pony, similar to the Shetland pony.

according to Seymour's book, Dexter are incredibly poor milkers . . . . he states that he wouldn't go past a Jersey for the small-holder . . . . the Kerry breed have fulfilled this function in Ireland but i believe they are quite expensive with the increased interest in the small-holding lifestyle

I appreciate that this is likely to encourage a great deal of hate mail but Seymour didn't get absolutely everything right,good bloke and true guru that he certainly was.I would look at the Shetland cattle,smallish,low maintenance and nice to look at,plus kerry,red poll etc and welsh black.Wouldn't have a channel island bull ,still got the scar from when I was a kid.

oldjerry wrote:Seymour didn't get absolutely everything right

neither him nor anyone else

stonethrower wrote:

oldjerry wrote:Seymour didn't get absolutely everything right

neither him nor anyone else

Excuse me...... I'm always right.....

stonethrower wrote:

oldjerry wrote:Seymour didn't get absolutely everything right

neither him nor anyone else

Most of all me,but then I didn't have a book contract to bale me out!