By Margaret Quaassdorff & Betsy Hicks
Click to read: Characteristics of the Beef x Dairy Industry in NYS-White Paper
The usage of beef sires on dairy farms more than doubled from 2015 to 2019. In recent years, New York sale barns reported that beef x dairy (BxD) calves consistently brought $50-$150 over a standard dairy bull calf. Because of the premium for black-hided calves, many dairy farmers have tried to capitalize on this novel market without fully understanding the BxD industry and the implications of an inferior calf entering the beef supply chain.
Data presented in this white paper are from a Qualtrics survey conducted online between the months of October 2020 and June 2021. Farmers were surveyed to assess how they utilize beef sires in their dairy herds, their criteria in selecting dairy animals to breed to beef sires, and sire selection criteria. Farmers were also surveyed on their management practices of producing, raising, marketing and selling BxD cattle, as well as information needed by them to further their knowledge.
The majority of BxD calves are leaving dairy farms at less than a week old, however there are still a number of farms raising these cattle to different timepoints across the state implementing a variety of management and feeding strategies. This combined with the scarcity of on-farm scales and actual growth measurement data make it nearly impossible to gauge the “best” way to encourage farmers to incorporate a BxD enterprise into a farm’s business strategy.
Results from this survey led to establishing several keys for the viability of the beef x dairy industry in New York State.
Click to read: Characteristics of the Beef x Dairy Industry in NYS-White Paper
Hey Betsy what about the farmers buying and raising them isn’t that the hard part? Could sure use some info on that!
Hi Charles – you’re absolutely correct!! We would love to study the costs involved with growing beef x dairy cattle and be able to benchmark these for farmers in NY.