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Original
Article About Dexters
"The
Dexter in History: Part Five
The Kerry Breed and Dexters"
by Beverley McCulloch and Michael Trotter
A revised version of an article first published in
the Dexter Dispatch, Bulletin of the NZ Dexter Cattle Society, no.
35, February 2002, pages 22-24
This part of our series on the Dexter in history is taken from the second
edition of "Farm Live Stock of Great Britain" by Robert Wallace, published
in 1889. A special feature of this edition is the use of actual photographs
to illustrate the animals described (two are provided below). The author
draws special attention to these in the preface and it is certainly the
earliest work of this sort that we have come across to be illustrated with
photographs.
NOTE: This article was written for the first edition of Wallace’s book
when Dexters were still considered to be part of the Kerry breed.
Dexter Kerry Bull, "Paradox", four years old.
Entry for Paradox in First
Dexter Herd Book
“THE KERRY BREED, From the mountainous region in the south-west of Ireland,
is the only pure remaining Irish breed.
The predominating cattle of Ireland are short-horns more or less mixed with
the ancient Irish that at one time, to a large extent, belonged to the
long-horn breed. The last twenty years has seen an enormous improvement in
the feeding qualities of the general run of Irish bullocks brought over in
large numbers, and sold at fares and markets in both Scotland and England.
In some secluded districts, such as a poor tract of moory and unreclaimed
land lying to the west of Cork, the old Irish milking cow, a breed anterior
in time to the longhorn in the island, is yet to be seen in a form which
does not appear to be much changed by the introduction of foreign blood.
These animals are thin fleshed and slow to feed, but give on inferior fare a
considerable quantity of poor milk. Their horns are of medium length, thin
and “spaley.” The hair of the body, usually brown, has more or less of
single white hairs mixed with it, and also forming a ridge of white along
the line of the backbone: a characteristic which is now intimately
associated with Irish cattle other than the purest shorthorns or their
best-bred descendants. The longhorn breed possessed it, and when Low wrote
it was an acknowledged point of the Kerry, though it has disappeared from
the best Kerry blood of recent years.
The Kerry is “the poor man’s” or the Irish cottier’s cow, especially in cold
and inferior districts, but the breed also possesses the power of beef
production in an eminent degree.
Points.– The true Kerry colours are orange skin with black hair, though
specimens with red-brown hair do occur in the purest blood, but more
frequently, perhaps, in the Dexter variety than in the other. White patches
also appear from time to time. In general outline the Kerry has much in
common with the Jersey and also with the Ayrshire, though in size it is,
under its home conditions, smaller than either of the two. Its spare form
indicates its superiority in milking rather than in beef production. The
horns are fine and waxy, yellow or white, with sharp black tips, and curving
gracefully upward in the cow.
The Dexter variety, though now distinctly, in all senses of the term, a pure
Kerry, whatever may have been its origin, is a much more compact, more
substantial, and lower set animal than the Kerry proper. Its toes turn in
after a peculiar fashion, and it tends to walk over the outer digits,
especially in the case of the hind feet. The leg bones are shorter and
more
substantial, the neck thicker and shorter, the horns heavier, not so
elevated and airy, and the head heavier and not so deer-like as in the case
of the original Kerry.
Dexter Kerry Cow, "Rosemary."
Never beaten but by "Irisene."
[To another photo of
Rosemary in 1890 Herdbook]
Low, in 1845, states the prevailing belief as to its origin to be that it
was introduced, whether through crossing or selection was not known, by an
agent of Maude Lord Hawarden called Dexter, but some considerable amount of
doubt exists as to the accuracy of the statement. The author, while
travelling in Kerry some years ago, found the word Dexter used in a generic
sense of all animals which correspond to the above description, even of men
who are low set and bandy legged; and also that the term was in the first
instances applied to short-legged sheep kept by a resident Coast Guards
officer.
Kerries cross remarkably well with other breeds; with the British
flesh-producing breeds for fattening cattle, and with the milking
breeds—Channel Islands and Ayrshire—for dairy cattle. The cross animals when
at a little distance often strongly resemble West Highlanders. This is an
additional proof of the common origin of the breeds.
Kerries have in recent years attracted great attention in England as fancy
cattle, and have on more than one occasion been specially taken notice of by
Royalty. James Robertson, of Malahide near Dublin, has, as a recreation and
a change from the ordinary routine of business, been largely instrumental in
bringing the breed into prominence by exhibiting good specimens of it at the
Royal Agricultural and the London Dairy shows, and finally by carefully
selecting the young and undeveloped members of the purest and best sorts at
the Killarney and other western fairs, and shipping them as they come
forward to sale condition to supply a growing demand in this country.”
On to Part Six
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