Towards more profitable and ethical dairy beef

DairyNZ and Beef + Lamb New Zealand have joined forces on the Dairy Beef Profit Partnership pilot. The pilot was facilitated by Bob Thomson, a farm systems and beef specialist with decades of experience in dairy-beef integration, while DairyNZ senior developer Jac McGowan has been working alongside participating farmers to understand what underpins a successful dairybeef relationship.

As part of the pilot, Owl Farm was invited to host a field day – giving farmers a practical look at how dairybeef breeding can help lift the value of non-replacement calves. This work aligned closely with one of Owl Farm’s key performance indicators: 100% purposeful life for calves.

“We’d started thinking about how we could give maximum value for our calves,” Owl Farm demonstration manager Jo Sheridan says.

“We were already selling excess heifers, but the national herd stopped growing and export stopped, so value dropped, and it was costing us to rear them through to weaning.”

They initially dabbled in Wagyu, but the slightly longer gestation length started affecting their days in milk, and calves were spending longer on-farm than they could manage. Around the same time, major breeding companies were advancing beef genetics, offering more options.

“We explored a range of different performance beef breeds and embarked on mating before we had a plan for the calves,” Jo says.

“That included using sexed semen over high-BW cows for replacements and beef semen over our low-BW cows with traits suited for dairy-beef – good growth, calving ease and shorter gestation.”

Hosting the B+LNZ field day became a natural next step in the pilot.

“We had a heap of calf rearers and beef farmers attend,” Jo says.

“It gave us a great starting point, giving us contacts who could be interested in purchasing our excess calves.”

One of those farmers was beef finisher Guy Melville. He and his wife Jenny operate a large bull beef unit, Puketotara Station, west of Huntly. They run 1900 mostly Friesian bulls, on 950 effective hectares, and have been developing the farm into an intensive cell grazing system.

At the B+LNZ field day, Guy’s ears pricked up when he learnt of the results that had been seen in carcass weights of some of the innovative dairy-beef breeding.

“They talked of results as good as Friesians, which got me interested,” Guy says.

He connected with Jo about Owl Farm’s beef calves as his ultimate goal is to work with a dairy farmer and calf rearer.

“It would be good to work closely with a dairy farmer to have a say on the beef genetics they’re using and line up the dots – removing some of the uncertainty for everyone,” Guy says.

He collected 10 of Owl Farm’s dairybeef calves of mixed breeding and has been running them with 10 Friesians for a bit of a comparative trial.

“We weigh roughly every six weeks and they’re pretty on par. The Friesians have been slightly heavier but I’m hoping the dairy beef ones will yield more.

“The real results will be in the carcass weights when they go to the works at 18 months.”

Importantly, Guy has been impressed with their temperament.

“I was a bit worried about using beef breeds. The Friesians are pretty quiet, which is important as we’re handling them so much in our intensive system, but they’ve all been fine, which is really reassuring.”

If the trial keeps tracking well, it’ll give Guy more flexibility. He can also run the dairy-beef animals as steers without losing much production – a big advantage when you’re managing a large group of bulls in one place.

The pilot is already showing what helps these partnerships work. Farmers involved highlighted the value of seeing each other’s systems firsthand, having open conversations about pricing and quality, and building trust over time. Many said connecting with others across the supply chain — from breeding through to processing — gave them a clearer sense of what each part of the chain needs.

To find out if dairy beef is an option for your farm, check out dairynz.co.nz/dairy-beef