HomeRick's story
Grand G Ranch. Sounds a little pretentious, but that's not the case at all. When we were trying to come up with a name for the ranch, we decided Grandma and Grandpa Groves' Ranch was just too long, so we shortened it to Grand G. That's the long and the short of it.
When people retire they often downsize: smaller house, smaller property to take care of, less work. We went the other direction and upsized from the seven acre property we had to an 87 acre ranch back in 2020. We knew we wanted cattle and were looking at either Angus or possibly Texas Longhorns. We ruled the Longhorn out right away. Then Marilyn ran across the Dexter breed and almost immediately we knew they were the right breed for us. It turns out it was a great decision and we love our Dexters.
I grew up around livestock and farming and had messed with various livestock over the years, but was certainly no expert and probably never will be. But the experience I had has served us well, and we both are big believers in doing research and asking questions. (I also have the advantage of being able to call my daughter for vet advice. She's not a vet, but she has run an UltraBlack operation in north central Arkansas for years and she "knows stuff".)
We found it can be challenging to start a herd of Dexters. With Angus or some of the more prolific breeds you can often buy a whole herd from one breeder. With Dexters it seems it is often only one or two available from a breeder at any given time. We found our first cow, Daisy, and a dun bull, Cocoa, at about the same time from two different sources. We were running an ad in the ADCA sales list stating we were looking to buy several cows or heifers. Luck was on our side and we were contacted by someone who was reducing their herd and had seven cows for sale along with two nursing steer calves. Six of the cows had been exposed to a bull. A couple of months later we bought Euchee Creek's Red Dax, a wonderful red bull, and two very nice red heifers from David at Bar None. Now we were at 14. It turns out Daisy was also bred and six of the seven cows had calves. The seventh cow was exposed to Cocoa shortly after we got her, so we ended up with eight new calves in less than a year of starting out. Now we were at 22. We're starting to figure out how this cow math thing works.
Nowadays we try to stay between 20 and 30 total animals. That's about the right amount for us, and it means we have plenty of grass unless there's a bad drought. Most of the animals in this story are gone now. We traded bulls to bring in a new bloodline, and sometimes you have to cull. It's not fun, but it's part of the deal if you're going to raise livestock, especially breeding quality livestock. We keep what works and cull what doesn't. That's how you improve your herd.
If you're thinking about getting cattle yourself, see Getting Started with Dexters for what we learned getting our place ready.