Little Milky Way Dexter Cattle

In 2012 we moved from Perth to Cooks Gap in Mudgee and purchased a 25 acre block of land with the intention of farming a small number of livestock for meat and milk, poultry for meat and eggs and growing our own vegetables. We soon purchased a couple of sheep and goats for meat and a few chooks for eggs. Being lovers of a good steak and wanting to supply ourselves with milk a cow was the next purchase.

Having been interested in Dexter’s since first hearing about them whilst living in QLD in 2006 we knew this small breed of dual purpose cattle would be perfect for our lifestyle. In March 2013 my partner Brett bought me a registered Dexter cow, Sandycreek Firefly for my birthday. This was the foundation of Little Milkyway Dexter Stud.

My original intention was to just keep the one cow, leasing a bull each year so as the cow would have a calf annually and keep us in milk and meat, selling on any heifers. Friends and family were impressed with the docile nature of Firefly or Daisy as she has become affectionately known, with both children and adults having a go at milking. After butchering Daisy’s first steer calf and going halves with our daughter and son-in-law we knew we had made the right decision going with the Dexters. The meat was tender and tasty and being a smaller size breed not too big to fit half a steer in the freezer.

I so enjoyed working with Daisy and halter training her next calf I decided I would buy some more and start breeding in earnest with the intention of selling cows to hobby farmers as a lifestyle choice. I started purchasing quality commercial cows, training them to be milkers and selling them to families at the same time watching out for registered stock to expand my herd. Today we have over a dozen registered breeding cows, several heifers and steers and three bulls.

My aim is to breed polled stock with known chondrodysplasia and pulmonary hypoplasia with anasarca (PHA) status. Most of my stock are polled and many are homozygous poll all future calves will be born polled.