Beef on dairy crosses are becoming a new avenue for increasing the value of a specific group of cattle in both industries.
Iowa State University Extension and Outreach beef specialist Denise Schwab is co-heading a three-part project to provide more resources to producers about beef-dairy crosses.
“From the dairy industry, it’s giving us a product that better fits into the beef market chain, by crossing with a beef animal, especially if we’re doing a good job on the genetic selection,” she said. “We’re getting more muscle, a bigger ribeye, a little bit better performance, all of those things that are going to result in a better carcass.”
Schwab said about the value of the crosses, “[and] from a beef perspective those calves out of those dairy cows will end up in the beef market regardless so we’re not necessarily adding more numbers to the market, but we are helping the beef industry…to better fit the beef chain from a quality standpoint.”
Schwab said the research is meant to help address the lack of resources surrounding problems with beef on dairy crosses at harvest such as liver abscesses and stomach ulcers.
The first part was to put together a resource page about beef on dairy cross calves which is now available on the Iowa Beef Center website.
The research’s second phase was to survey the calf and feedlot producers in Iowa and the upper Midwest to see how they manage their dairy and beef cross calves, which has now been published by ISU Extension.
The third aspect of the project is still in progress taking three groups of calves from day one to harvest, specifically tracking the effect of different feeding programs in the first 120 days on the final carcasses.
For more information visit: https://www.extension.iastate.edu/news/new-beef-x-dairy-resource-available-iowa-beef-center-website
