Reflections on the New Year

When I was a boy time was such a drag. Like most of you, I suppose, if there was some special event that I was looking forward to, it seemed it took forever to arrive. Even today, many grown-ups wish time away, anxious for some imagined pleasure in the future.

For most of us, however, after marriage, family and earning a living, time takes on new meaning. Suddenly it moves so quickly that we wonder whatever happened to the day, or the month, or the year. Almost everything I do now is exciting and worth doing and I never look at my watch, except to see how much daylight is left to do my work. Or catch a plane.

I became aware of the changed meaning of time in my life when I began working with the New England Livestock Association and Ridge Shinn in 2002. Discovering Devon cattle while in the North East has been the most exciting and beneficial experience of my professional working days.

The Devon is a breed that extends back into antiquity and the knowledge that we’re a part of protecting that heritage adds to the pleasure we receive in working with the animals. There is some indication that the Celts developed Devon. The Celtic people were passionate farmers and cattle breeders some 500 years before the birth of Christ and for another 400 years after His death. I have never read of another group of farmers and breeders of cattle who endured for such an extended period of time.

This past September, while on the World Devon Conference tour in Australia, we visited a city settled by Celts. I searched without success for someone who might have some insight into their history. But no one seemed very interested in their heritage and early history. So the origin of Devon remains a mystery, for now.

Working with and managing a breed of cattle that has the history of Devon makes me want to know what caused this breed to withstand all the pressure for change that undoubtedly came through the ages. How was Devon able to remain so genetically pure?

Devon hasn’t just maintained their ability to thrive on grass, but their docility, their very high quality of milk, their finely textured meat. There is no other breed of cattle I know of in the world which can do all that, and without changing.

All the other breeds have tried, and believed they were being aided by the latest scientific knowledge. We can look and study each of these breeds and understand how they became what they are. Each day of my life, I search for the Devon secret. What did those ancient people know?

Certainly the Celtic people had no scientific equipment to shear force the meat or laboratories to test essential fatty acid profile or the fat content of the milk. So how could they know which animals to select for mating to build what later-day experts called “the perfect cow”.

The only laboratory equipment 2500 years ago would have been the milk bucket. That would have permitted the Celts to measure milk fat. In fact, milk fat was about the only standard for measuring cows right up to the 1920s.

So I have concluded, until someone proves me wrong, that those ancient builders of the Devon breed were guided by their milk buckets. If the animal gave a high percent of milk fat it was kept and bred to produce another female that produced high milk fat. This process was continued on and on for perhaps 900 years. The herd sires were chosen from cows which produced the most milk fat and so that became a homogeneous characteristic.

What we are only now beginning to recognize is that milk fat and finely-textured tender red meat are quality characteristics you cannot separate. If you have one you automatically have the other.

It is an irony of history that a modern innovation which, at the time seemed to doom Devon, was to be its savior. That innovation was the feed lot system and Devon’s “failing”, as it was considered then, was that it built back fat so fast it could not consume the amount of corn required for a feed lot’s profitability.

As a result Devon was spared the many cross-breeding schemes of the American cattle industry to fit the commodity market. She remained pure because the experts felt she wasn’t worth bothering with.

And so in 2002, having searched for several years for the perfect grass-based cow, I came upon Devon and determined in my heart I would do what I could to keep the breed pure the remainder of my working days. I began by working with Devon breeders who were pursuing the feed lot standards of the day by using crossing and breeding up programs. The Devon leadership at the time rejected in my arguments that we should keep the breed pure…that history would turn back to Devon.

But there were breeders who saw the desirability of protecting and promoting pure Devon. And it was with these men and women that we formed the North American Devon Association in 2006. The past three years have been filled with excitement and joy.

The breeders I have had the opportunity to meet and work with have brought me great reward and I now feel confident that the purity of our Devon is protected into the next generation. It will take a number of years to build a critical mass of cattle to work with. But we must have patience at this stage. We are building a foundation for our Devon future. It is a responsibility that we must meet with pride and with a dedication to the standard of purity.

When you consider the many demands of today---demands for healthy food, a quality environment, a cost-effective grass converter----I sometimes wonder if we are dealing with destiny.

Could it be that Devon purity was saved for a time such as this? I like to think so.