Dream – Cow Family Feature | Bestyet A.I Sires | Grazing Genetics from Dutch Belted and Milking Shorthorns

Dream – Cow Family Feature

by | Aug 28, 2020 | Genetics, History

Hwin Dream, a Dutch Belted cow

From Sweet Dreams to Happy Dream and everyone in between

We thought it would be interesting to take the different cow families represented in our herd today, and trace them back to the original animals we purchased.  This takes some extensive research through the old pedigree books, but it’s kind of a fun project, so here we go.

We’ll start with our Dutch Belted Dream family. My late husband, Kenneth Hoffman, purchased some heifer calves from Dorothy O’Neill Hornback in the early 1980’s. Dorothy often gave him the opportunity to name them, and even offered to use his prefix Bestyet even though she was the breeder. Since he was courting me at the time, he named one “Sweet Dreams”. (Aw, isn’t that sweet.)  Here is her original registration certificate:

We will call her number one, and list the line of females in order, with each one’s sire in parentheses:

1.       Bestyet Sweet Dreams #9239 (Lakenvelders Hildas Hector #2490)

2.       Bestyet De Land Lassy #9408 (O’Neill’s He-Man #2598)

3.       Bestyet Apple Dream #9465 (Bestyet Apple Cider #2613)

4.       Bestyet Golden Dream #9538 (Grayview Gold Dust #2643)

Dutch Belted cow
Golden Dream with Kenneth Hoffman and daughter Martha

5.       Bestyet His Dream #9775 (O’Neill’s He-Man #2598)

6.       Bestyet Try It Dream #9880 (Best of Tillamook #2657)

Try It at a petting zoo where she was a popular attraction with her friendly and curious personality.
Try It udder shot

7.       Bestyet Hwin Dream #10388 (Bestyet Hercules #2804

Hwin with Brian and Martha (Hoffman) Kerestes on their wedding day. Photo credit: Tammy Ballas Photography.

8.       Bestyet Tammy Wynette Dream #11880 (Bestyet Twofold #2664)

9.   Bestyet Tracy Dream #13288 (Bohnview Chief Titan-ET #2858)

10.   Bestyet Happy Dream #14101 (Bestyet Helpful #2813)

Happy Dream Dutch Belted calf

Of course, there were other females branching out from these, including Bestyet Helps To Dream #11877 who migrated as a calf to the state of Oregon as part of a new purebred herd. 

Dutch Belted cows
Helps To Dream (left) joined a herd in Oregon.

Happy Dream herself has found a new home in Indiana with a family who is excited to start out with some Dutch Belted calves. We are keeping her mother and great-grandmother in the herd as brood cows to continue the line.

The personalities in this cow family are both friendly and curious, sometimes even a little goofy, but they definitely do like people, which makes them fun to work with.  We also like their dairy character, milking ability, udder quality, depth of body, and sweep of rib.

We consider it our responsibility to keep these cow families going in our herd, as well as providing foundation animals for other herds. Kenneth used to say, “They’re not really our cows,” as a reminder of our obligation to be accountable to the larger purpose we are a part of as breeders.  Likewise he would also say, “We couldn’t do any of this without the people who came before us.”