The dairy industry has always been a part of the beef business but today the dairy herd in both Canada and the U.S. plays an increasingly important role in the beef production system.
In the U.S., one in five fed cattle now comes from the dairy industry; some of those cattle are full dairy but plenty are cross-bred cattle.
Dr. Dale Woerner, Cargill Endowed Professorship in Meat Science at Texas Tech University, says that beef on dairy crosses are a huge part of the beef production system and have become a real profit centre for dairy producers.

Woerner says that strategic breeding for high-quality beef adds value for the producer and the feedlot, and producers are selecting genetic combinations that make the grade and leveraging the genetics that offer improvements on a dairy frame.
There are several approaches to extracting more value from beef crosses on dairy, including selective AI breeding, embryo transfer and more. Woerner says producers are having success using wagyu genetics on dairy cows to create high quality beef.
Beef on dairy does create some challenges — the increased incidence of liver abscesses is a risk — and it has created some tighter-than-ideal replacement heifer numbers; however calf management and a focus on continued improvement on red meat yield spells opportunity for many in the dairy industry, he says.
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