P365 - Day 149 Deyrah Dexter

Today’s post is an unexpected set of photos for Frogpondsrock’s Sunday Selections project.

This weekend was starting to look like another one of those weekends where I spent most of it moping around the house. I’ve got another cold, which seems to just be a continuation of the last two – or the last one that lasted a month, whichever way you want to look at it – and didn’t do much yesterday as a result.

 

Today was going to be much of the same, but a friend texted me last night and said she was going to look at some cows and asked if we wanted to come along.

Well looking at cows sounded like something Juniordwarf would like to do. It didn’t sound too strenuous, it wasn’t too far away and it would get us out of the house, so I said we’d love to go.

The cows in question were Dexters, which I’ll admit to knowing nothing about until today.

The Dexter is a fairly small Irish breed, about one metre tall, which was brought to Australia in the 1880s. They are bred both for beef and milk, hence their tagline ‘beefy little milkers’. You can find out more about them at the Official Dexter Cattle Australia Inc. website.

The property we went to is Deyrah Dexter, in the Derwent Valley. Daryl and Sue held an open day today, which was part of the 2011 Tasmanian Heritage Festival.

Juniordwarf was very excited about going to a farm, and he was hoping to see sheep and pigs as well, but I think not being able to see those animals was well outweighed by being able to get close to these beautiful, docile cows.

Typically for a little kid though, he ended up being more interested in the cow poo than the cows themselves, and was quite delighted when one of the cows actually did a poo right in front of him.

The cows were great and didn’t mind a bunch of strangers standing round in their paddock watching them and patting them. I got a bit of a surprise when, standing next to a hay bale, a cow’s head suddenly appeared practically under my arm to get some more hay. They certainly weren’t shy.

We also got an opportunity to sample the Dexters’ ‘beefy’ nature, with a sausage sizzle. They make a very nice sausage. Juniordwarf thought so too, as did the farm cat, which was quite determined to take Juniordwarf’s away from him.

We left with my friend and her partner very interested in getting hold of a couple of these lovely cows, once they have the land to do it. I’m very excited for them.

Juniordwarf attempting to pat a cow