09/17/2026
A few thoughts on the 2026-27 SMD breeding plan.
This year’s breeding plan is not quite the one we expected to be making.
We began the year intending to introduce an excellent new genetic outcross into the herd. Circumstances changed, and that option disappeared. Unfortunate, certainly, but hardly foreign to anyone who has spent much time breeding livestock.
Claude Hinman understood that nearly three quarters of a century ago.
In Dual Purpose Cattle, his short chapter on “Purebred Livestock Breeding” remains one of the better descriptions we have read of what this work actually requires: imagination, idealism, patience, constant study, capital, courage or, in his words, “plain guts.” We wrote about that chapter, "Purebred Livestock Breeding," several years ago in “There they are. Go look at’em.” https://www.silvermapledexters.com/post/2019/04/14/e2809cthere-they-are-go-look-ate28099eme2809d-purebred-livestock-breeding-a-lifetime-craf
Hinman understood something else as well. Plans do not always survive contact with cattle, circumstance, or time. Purebred breeding is a long game of decisions, consequences, and adjustment. A breeder needs an objective, certainly, but also enough knowledge of the cattle and their pedigrees to adjust when one of those pieces moves. There are no completely certain matings. There are informed ones.
That brings us to the four bulls that will figure prominently in our 2026-27 breeding season: SMD Ballan Navis, Brambledel Redberry Prince, SMD Doge Paycheck, and SMD Ferl Certus.
SMD Ballan Navis is thoroughly known to us. We have years of experience with his progeny and know what he tends to transmit. His daughters have demonstrated the udder quality, milk production, and maternal ability we value, while his offspring have also given us excellent length and beef performance. We are returning to Ballan where we want to continue fixing those traits in the herd.
Brambledel Redberry Prince is also known territory, though serving a different purpose this year. Prince remains an important developmental outcross for us, bringing genetics outside our more concentrated SMD families while continuing our work on heel depth and milking capacity. He is not being used simply because he is different. He is being used because we know what he offers and where those genetics fit.
SMD Ferl Certus gives us another familiar set of genetics, but this year we are using them in a somewhat different manner. Ferl’s matings this year involve deliberate linebreeding, concentrating genetics we already know to reinforce particular traits and better understand how consistently they can be reproduced. Linebreeding can reveal weaknesses as readily as it can strengthen virtues. That is part of its value.
SMD Doge Paycheck, one of our young herd sires, is the less proven piece in this year’s plan. His pedigree brings together several things we know exceptionally well: SMD Paycheck Ballan’s bulk, muscle and substance, strong udder genetics, and additional refinement through SMD Lord Baron Nelson. On paper, the combination is compelling. Now he has to prove that the pedigree and phenotype translate into progeny.
That is part of breeding too. Three of these bulls represent genetics we already know from direct experience. Doge represents the next question.
Four bulls. Different pedigrees. Different purposes. One breeding direction.
Dexter cattle that meet the standard with breed character and type, sound structure, length, depth, width, and capacity, maternal ability, unparalleled udder traits, and excellent beef performance – Breeding for Dual-purpose Use.
Hinman called purebred livestock breeding a lifetime job. The longer we are in the trade, the more accurate that statement becomes.
You make the best mating you can with the cattle, pedigree, and knowledge in front of you.
Then you wait.
First for the calf. Then for the offspring to grow, mature, reproduce, perform, and finally prove whether the mating did what you intended.
The initial answers to this year’s decisions are well more than two years away.
