New Devon Cattle

[townfarmer]

We had Scottish Highland Cattle for many years. We really liked them but now we have sold them all and started a small herd of Devon Cattle. The Devons have the hardy constitution of the highland cows but have the advantage of a much more commercially saleable calf. We started with five cows with calves at foot who are PTIC. They are older cows. We bought them from a registered herd of 300 cows. The owner had two properties that were 7 hours apart and when he sold the smaller property he had around 50 surplus cows. We had the opportunity to select from that group. We're keeping the cattle registered as my 8 year old daughter is keen to take a heifer to a show some day.

This is my daughter with a calf born 3 weeks ago.

Here are the five cows we bought:

We're enjoying looking out at red cattle in the paddock.

One of the weaned calves

Andrew

 

[tamarack]

Nice cattle, I thought the Devon breed were the largest of the British breeds.

 

[townfarmer]

Nice cattle, I thought the Devon breed were the largest of the British breeds.

Traditionally South Devon are the largest of the British breeds. Devon cattle (also called Red devon or North devon) are traditionally a moderate early maturing breed.

Andrew

 

[Andyva]

I've been ding some research. From what I can tell, the South Devons are a big cow, more blonde looking, look a lot like a Gelbvieh to me. The Red Devons are being billed (by their American breed association) as the greatest, most efficient moderate framed cow that ever ate grass, and has not been ruined like all the other breeds have in the great race to eat the most subsidized grain. At least that is what the association is saying in their marketing, that is obviously geared toward the anti-establishment hobby farmer. If all that they say is true, they are probably a lot better than some of the other popular hobby breeds, but the Devons in the history books and the Devons of today aren't necessarily the same animal, just by virtue of lineage. It would all come down to judicious use of the castrating knife. It would seem that in this country, they have been in the hands of people without a great amount of time spent in the cattle business for the majority of recent history. I'm not knocking them in any way, just trying to find out more about them, and the ones in the pictures above look like nice cattle. I did notice that there have been some more recent imports here from parts of the world where they stayed a little more popular, and were probably in the hands of more experienced cattlemen than the people that had them 'just because' in the Northeastern US.

 

[townfarmer]

I've been ding some research. From what I can tell, the South Devons are a big cow, more blonde looking, look a lot like a Gelbvieh to me. The Red Devons are being billed (by their American breed association) as the greatest, most efficient moderate framed cow that ever ate grass, and has not been ruined like all the other breeds have in the great race to eat the most subsidized grain. At least that is what the association is saying in their marketing, that is obviously geared toward the anti-establishment hobby farmer. If all that they say is true, they are probably a lot better than some of the other popular hobby breeds, but the Devons in the history books and the Devons of today aren't necessarily the same animal, just by virtue of lineage. It would all come down to judicious use of the castrating knife. It would seem that in this country, they have been in the hands of people without a great amount of time spent in the cattle business for the majority of recent history. I'm not knocking them in any way, just trying to find out more about them, and the ones in the pictures above look like nice cattle. I did notice that there have been some more recent imports here from parts of the world where they stayed a little more popular, and were probably in the hands of more experienced cattlemen than the people that had them 'just because' in the Northeastern US.

Your little summary there seems pretty accurate from the little I know.

The devon society here has a magazine called bulldust. The latest issue had a big report of devons in the US. It seems that these "anti establishment hobby farmers" (brilliant descriptor :lol: ) are actually quite a substantial emerging market that the US devon society is targetting. Some of these "new to cattle" producers seems so fanatically grass only that even their sale bulls are prepared on poor quality grass only. A lot of the bulls in sale catalogues look like underweight steers. It seems like a breed promotion disaster to me. Although I'm told that amongst the hundreds of newbies like me breeding devon cattle there are some exceptional herds of cattle in the US who as you say have imported the top genetics from the UK, NZ and Australia.

Andrew

 

[Andyva]

http://reddevonusa.com/why-devon/devon-a-history/
That is what the association has to say.
Those anti establishment types seem to always pop up every couple of generations, and they always seem to be obsessed with grass of one kind or another.
If they want good pictures for their catalogs they just need to go take pictures a while after selling to some of these folks. Some of them don't realize that the first ingredient of a grass feeding operation is not a fancy breed, it is good grass.

 

[wbvs58]

Nice photos Andrew and yes the cattle look like they will produce some solid calves.
Ken

 

[Supa Dexta]

That link is ridiculous. Yes if there's one thing the big feeders/packers hate its cattle that finish too easily, and too early.. HA

You can have all the small time anti est people you want, but they share one thing.. Very small budgets, and very small herd numbers. Thats not a recipe for breed society prosperity. Nothing against that cattle, just the direction of the marketing.

 

[Andyva]

When I read it, in an effort to learn about the cattle, I got the impression that it was written by a person that had been in the cattle business for about two years and a year and a half of that was spent just in the blog reading stages. Those evil establishment greedy big corporate farmers are most likely going to be using the best and most efficient genetics at their disposal. If a breed association thinks that theirs is better, time would be more wisely spent proving it and making information available instead of trying to alienate a whole industry.

 

[Anonymous]

i know this old post but thought id throw this out there !
i do not know how to post it but i dug into devon years ago had to contact australian ass. to get info an they sent my request to a breeder in the states ,he sent me an email showing there trials ,in fact i think they may have it on there website now .i was looking into a good cross but anyway
it showed devon x herford cattle could out gain any other { less days on feed in feedlot } problem was size they wouldnt grade out well enough to get premium ,thus reason they went towards grass market !

 

[Anonymous]

We d
Fed over two thousand head in feedlots from 1992-2003 of Devon and Devon X. Te cattle did great. Ration was mostly corn based. Cattle finished very quickly with high marks for carcass quality, the only down side was that carcass size was small disqualifying us from premiums.
I would happily give you more detail if I knew specifically what you wanted to know.
not sure if ths is allowed or not but copied an paste from my email
just a thought

 

[frieghttrain]

I like them all but the first one.

 

[townfarmer]

We d
Fed over two thousand head in feedlots from 1992-2003 of Devon and Devon X. Te cattle did great. Ration was mostly corn based. Cattle finished very quickly with high marks for carcass quality, the only down side was that carcass size was small disqualifying us from premiums.
I would happily give you more detail if I knew specifically what you wanted to know.
not sure if ths is allowed or not but copied an paste from my email
just a thought

Devon size is definitely an issue for a lot of commercial guys here. One of the things that impressed me about the Devon Cattle Breeders Society was how honest they were about what Devon cattle can do and also what they can't do. If weight for age is what you're after then a Devon bull is not the best choice.

Looks like your daughter has a great best friend!! Any updates on how the Devons are doing for you?

Tim

So far so good!. We've found them to live up to what was claimed; fertile, easy calving, low maintenance with quiet temperaments. The kids get in the yards, move them around and sort them. Haven't had one even look like getting excited despite their young inexperienced handlers.

Andrew

 

[Anonymous]

they do make some good looking cattle from what ive seen just size issue for grain market ,always wounder about thoser scotish highland also see them every now and them but never stoped to look close or ask sure got a lot of hair !

 

[Muddy]

they do make some good looking cattle from what ive seen just size issue for grain market ,always wounder about thoser scotish highland also see them every now and them but never stoped to look close or ask sure got a lot of hair !

Highlanders ain't good animals for the grass fed beef markets or feedlots. Lean beef market maybe but they're slowest gaining animals.

 

[Son of Butch]

There are good cattle in the minor breeds. Their problem is without measuring by performance testing, the superior individuals can't be reliably identified, so as to provide genetic improvement over breed average and so they get left
in the dust by the major breeds that do have the money and resources to measure genetic progress or regression.

 

[Andybob2]

There has been an increase in Red Devon breeders in the UK over the past 10 years, with a premium paid through the breed society marketing for grass finished Devons, http://www.redrubydevon.co.uk/