When the Uys family from Shanahoe, Co. Laois in the Republic of Ireland visited their friend Danie Kotze’s farm in the Kalahari desert in Namibia recently, they were fascinated to see his Dexter herd.
Koos and Marie Uys, and their daughter Sinead, were visiting family and friends in South Africa and Namibia and stopped off at their friend, Danie’s 7,665ha farm.
“This is mainly a sheep area, but I have quite a lot of cattle because I have a very big problem with guys stealing my sheep and carrying them away at night time,” Danie told Agriland.
“From 1996, I got into the Dexter breed because a neighbour bought two of them for his daughter when she was born, but she died from meningitis and he lost interest in the breed and asked me if I was interested, so I bought two cows and a bull from him. I now have a herd of 130,” Danie said.
“I use them for milk for our own drinking and we also produce our own butter and cream. I have three people from Oxford University doing PhD research on the farm and we put the milk into their rooms and they then enquired where we got such lovely milk from.
“We also slaughter them – they have very nice meat. They are a smaller unit so their steaks are more affordable. Every week I sell one or two at this time of the year,” he added.
The irish Dexter Cattle Society, on its website, points out that the breed was once known as the cottier cow or poor man’s cow.
Its ability to adapt to varying and extreme climatic conditions and to different types of management is a typical characteristic, the society said.
Being not as demanding on land as bigger breeds are, means Danie can keep more on his land which has savannah. After the rain, everything becomes dry and unpalatable but the Dexters are able to harvest their own food.
“They have adapted to the environment and are quite versatile,” Danie continued.
“We have come from a four-year drought and I have sold off my other cattle but I haven’t sold the Dexters. Sometimes there are very small amounts of grass left on the land and the Dexters, being low maintenance, survive and flourish whereas a lot of others die in the drought.
“We got some nice rain the previous season and therefore we have a lot of grass now. The Dexters help me to utilise that by producing very good quality beef.”
There is huge interest in Danie’s Dexter cattle. “I get a lot of telephone calls about them and I get asked a lot to sell them, but at this stage I need more of them to utilise the good grass and food that I have.
“I want to put my grass into protein. In our country we still eat a lot of meat.”
Dexter cattle
Sean Flannery, a hobby farmer from Co. Kildare, keeps 11 Dexters. He said: “In 2013, the year of The Gathering, there was a meeting in Dundrum, Co. Tipperary, and people from Namibia were there. They were saying how the Dexters survive at 40°C and there were also people from Canada saying how they also survived at -40°. I thought that was amazing.
“I was always interested in rare breeds and was involved with the Irish Native Rare Breeds Society, the umbrella group for all native rare breeds. Shortly after that I got into Dexters. I had been involved with Connemara ponies.
“In Ireland in 2014/2015, there were about 100 members of the Dexter Society UK in the Republic of Ireland. When the society had almost disbanded, I got involved in reviving and reorganising it.
“I served on the Dexter Cattle UK Society for three years, representing Ireland. In 2019 we had increased our numbers to 200 members and were asked to organise an AGM [annual general meeting] of the Dexter Society UK in Ireland.
“In 2020, the Department of Agriculture told us that we would have to form our own Irish herd book for Dexters due to Brexit so we did that and now we have over 300 members,” he added.
Their popularity, he said, is also due to new schemes which make grants available for keeping rare breeds.
“In Ireland they are almost solely used for beef production, but they have the capacity for dairy as well. Their milk is rich and comparable to Jersey herds,” Sean said.
“They are a very hardy and healthy breed that calve easily. They thrive on marginal land and are very suitable for organic production and finish on grass.”
