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Original
Article About Dexters
"History
of the Dexter Breed in Canada" Part I
by Carol Davidson, 2006
Carol Davidson is a Canadian Dexter breeder with a keen interest in the
history of the breed. She presented a paper to the Second World Congress on
Dexter Cattle, held in Australia in 2002, on research on the dun gene in
Dexters. Carol is also an active contributor to Dexter discussion boards on
the Internet. A version of the following article
could have been found on the Internet as part of the CDCA site for a time up
until February 2005. It disappeared when
this site was restructured in late 2005. Another earlier version of this article can be found in the
first issue of the "International Dexter" (September 2002). Thanks to Carol for supplying the
article and for
permission to include it on this website.
In December of 1899, the Farmer’s Advocate carried an article on
Dexter-Kerry cattle recently imported by Senator George Alexander Drummond,
of Montreal.
“Senator Drummond, whose ambition is only satisfied by possession of the
best of whatever class of stock he fancies, selected and imported at a very
high price, for the head of his herd of Dexters, the phenomenal young bull,
Bantam, bred by His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, winner of first
prize and the championship of the breed at the Royal Agricultural Society
Show at Manchester. With this bull, now three years old, came four handsome
young cows in calf, namely, Kathleen, Gloria, Toffy, and Trilby, which have
since produced two sets of calves, which gives the nucleus of a high-class
herd.”
Dexter bull Bantam, bred by Prince of Wales and imported
to Canada by Senator Drummond
Drummond was an important figure in turn-of-the-Century
Canada. A Senator and Vice (1887) and then President (1905) of Canada’s
first chartered bank, the Bank of Montreal, he died in 1910 at 81 years of
age. The fate of his Dexters is unknown.
In Volume XVII (1916) of The English Kerry and Dexter Cattle Society Herd
Book, eleven La Mancha animals were noted as having been exported to the
Vancouver Exhibition Association, British Columbia, in 1908. They were two
bulls, Flummerfelt and Malahide, and nine cows, Balsam, Fraulein, Girl, Go
Go, Luck, May, Pet, Wee Mite and Wee Thing.
In Canada, the animals and offspring were registered with the American Kerry
and Dexter Cattle Association, listed to three owners. John Lawson, the
founder of West Vancouver, kept his Dexters at Hollyburn Farm, after which
the nearby mountain, ski resort and regional park are named.
H. Rolson was General Manager of the Vancouver Exhibition Association (the
forerunner of the second largest agricultural showcase in Canada), and a
prominent racehorse breeder. The third owner was W. J. Taylor, a King's
Council and solicitor for the City of Victoria on Vancouver Island. Mr.
Taylor had a 600-acre farm north of Victoria, his own racetrack, and was a
leading breeder of racehorses in western North America. The fate of all the
La Mancha Dexters is unknown.
(Things go in circles: there is still a racetrack at the site, now known as
Sandown Park, and a recent owner of Sandown Park also kept a few Dexters. In
his case, the cows were resold, and the bull ended up as part of a rodeo
routine touring western Canada.)
In the late 1940s, two English Fyfield cows were imported to British
Columbia, and ended up on a remote farm on the west coast of Vancouver
Island, along with specially imported Highland cattle and a rare breed of
Scottish sheep (breed name lost). The owner died, and the widow was forced
into bankruptcy. The livestock was disbursed, with one Dexter going to
auction, but the other was ‘saved’ by the livestock hauler who kept her as a
pet until her death at close to 20 years.
Between 1958 and 1966, W.O. Carcaud of Montreal, vice-president of a pharmaceutical company, double registered his imported
American Dexters in the U.S. and Canada. These Dexters were from the
Peerless herd, descended directly from the original American imports from
Ireland around 1910. They were reportedly sold back into the U.S., but their
registrations were never transferred, and there is no record of them from
then on.
All these early Dexters would have been dwarfs, and likely went the way of
many novelty livestock when the owner’s interest waned: outcrossed or
slaughtered.
In 1978, Doris and Marshall Crowe, with three friends, imported four heifers
from Beryl Rutherford’s Woodmagic herd in England and a bull from the U.S.
These they kept on their 400-acre Rideau River farm retreat outside
Ottawa. They named their new herd Cranworth, after the name of the (then
defunct) nearby crossroads, Cranworth Corners. The following year, six
heifers from the American Klein-Hydrif herd were added, and the Crowes and
a young university student herdsman, Eric Lawlor, imported six more
Woodmagic heifers and a bull.
Woodmagic Plover, imported from England in 1978
According to
George Klein, “Doris purchased our heifer calves to start her herd. We
had at the same time a good-looking bull calf. She did not take him as she
was going to England for a bull. Six weeks later she called and said
nothing in England looked as good as our bull calf and she would take him. Tooooo late! He had been steered.” The Crowes, and their friends, the
Higgins (grandson of the Irish O’Higgins who created a ‘kingdom’ for himself
in Argentina in the 1800s), became the major forces behind the Dexter
revival in Canada.
By 1983, the Crowes had sold or traded a number of animals with Jim Johnson, an
established breeder in the U.S. and the (then) current President of the
American Dexter association. This move added O’Briar Hill genetics into
their herd, as well as spreading Woodmagic breeding south of the border.
Eric Lawlor collected semen from his bull, Aldebaran Priapus, making Priapus
the first Canadian Dexter AI bull. Shortly thereafter, Priapus’ sire,
Trillium Cluny, was collected and a son, Trillium Chabotte, was also
collected (by a Belgian Blue breeder who learned of a need for Dexter semen
in Australia, and capitalized on the knowledge).
In 1984, two cows and a bull from the English Knotting herd were imported by
Kathy Lovejoy, of Vancouver Island. Jane Paynter’s Knotting herd was known
for its high milk yields. Kathy kept her Dexters only for a few years before
disbursing the cows to June Goose (Glencara herd) in Vancouver. Sadly, both
cows were destroyed at the height of the English BSE scare, as part of the
Canadian government’s BSE protection program.
Little Ladydale of Knotting, a 1984 import
The bull, Lucifer of Knotting, was sold separately to Paul Taylor and Judy
Moseley. In 1989, they had 1,500 straws of semen collected, and offered it
on both sides of the border. Lucifer was the first red Dexter in Canada, and
has been very influential in establishing that coat colour in Dexters in
North America, as well as vastly improving udders in his offspring.
On to Part II
Back to List of “Original Articles
About Dexters”
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