Beef-on-dairy

What is beef-on-dairy?

Beef-on-dairy refers to calves born to dairy cows and sired by a beef breed. These calves are part of the wider dairy-beef category, which includes any animal born in the dairy industry and raised for beef production.

Why consider beef-on-dairy?

There is opportunity for utilising different breeding strategies to break into the dairy-beef market. Strategic selection of high-genetic-merit beef-bred sires is critical for maximising beef genetics in mating programs. However, there are some limitations around how this market can be grown, and any growth needs to be done in a profitable and stable way to ensure the value of beef-on-dairy is kept or improved. Before deciding to rear more beef-on-dairy animals, build connections with your selected beef rearers, and select beef traits suitable for both your farm system needs.

Using beef genetics may help you:

increase the value of or access more market options for non-replacement calves,
produce calves with stronger growth and finishing potential,
form resilient relationships with calf rearers and finishers who come back every calving,
generate high performing beef animals for your own business,
contribute to reducing the environmental footprint of beef production.

Planning your beef-on-dairy strategy

Before using beef genetics, think about how beef-on-dairy fits within your whole farm system. Consider:

how many replacement heifers you need,
which cows or heifers are suitable for beef genetics,
whether calves will be sold, reared or finished,
what traits are valued by calf buyers, rearers or finishers,
how your breeding decisions align with long-term farm goals.

Producing successful beef-on-dairy calves starts with understanding the market requirements and selecting animals that suit those requirements.

Start with the market

Different buyers and finishing systems value different traits. Before selecting sires, talk with calf buyers, rearers or finishers about the type of calves they want. This might include what they’re willing to pay extra for or what they’d want guaranteed. Producing calves that meet the needs of the intended market is often more important than choosing a particular breed.

Choose the bull, not just the breed

Different bull breeds have general trends in genetic production and efficiency characteristics, but there are considerable within-breed sire differences. That is, one bull of the same breed will perform differently to another bull of the same breed. When selecting beef sires, focus on the performance of the individual bull rather than relying on breed averages alone.

There are many traits you could select on but for most dairy farmers, the most important when mating for beef production are:

Low calving difficulty – to protect your cows.
High growth rate – to perform as a beef animal

Using proven sires allows you to select beef-bred sires to produce progeny with lighter birth weights and in some cases still achieve high growth rates. Beef + Lamb New Zealand progeny test the performance of bulls with estimated breeding values (EBV's) that indicate they are likely to be excellent bulls for beef-on-dairy farm systems.

Calving ease comes first

Protecting cow and heifer welfare is a priority when using beef genetics. Choose proven sires with good calving-ease information, particularly when mating younger animals.

Birthweight can provide useful information, but it should not replace calving-ease information when making breeding decisions.

Gestation length

Beef breeds typically have longer gestation periods compared to dairy breeds. However, there is large variation within breed and some proven beef sires have similar or shorter gestation lengths that the average for dairy.

Shorter gestation lengths can help bring calving forward and provide cows with more time before the next mating period. If you want the resulting calves to be suitable for beef production, chose sires that have good growth rates as well. Many beef calf buyers avoid calves sired by SGL bulls.

Thinking about mating heifers to beef?

Heifers are at greater risk of calving difficulty than mature cows. If you plan to use beef genetics over heifers:

make sure heifers are on track to reach target liveweights at mating and calving,
use proven easy-calving sires,
avoid sires with long gestation lengths,
select the individual sire, not just the breed,
manage heifers well through pregnancy to maintain growth and reduce calving risk.

Where AI is practical, generating dairy replacements from heifers is a good approach to maximise genetic gain – which free’s up cows in the herd to use beef semen over.

Where AI is not practical, easy-calving dairy bulls, including Jersey bulls where appropriate, remain a lower-risk mating option for many heifer systems.