Meat+Poultry - April 2023 - 23

Processors meet the demand for high-quality
beef by utilizing dairy cows
BY JEFF SAVELL AND KERRI GEHRING | meatpoult r y@sosland.com
A
n important and oftentimes
underappreciated contributor to the
beef industry is the dairy sector. If
you ask children to draw a cow, you likely
will see a black and white animal we know as
the Holstein breed. If you watch television or
movies where cattle are depicted, you may see
anything but a dairy breed.
It seems that there is no place for dairy
cattle in a John Wayne western. Regardless of
perspective, dairy cattle play an important role
in today's beef industry.
Dairy cattle are sources of milk used as
fluid milk or manufacturing
into cheese, butter, ice cream,
and other products we love
to consume. With the need to
maximize milk production, the
dominant breed in the United
States is Holstein because of
its propensity to produce large
quantities of milk. Because
of its high butter fat content,
Jerseys are another dairy breed
that is used when manufactured
dairy products are the focus of
of cows are more common today than in
the past.
Without
dairy beef,
the supply of
USDA Prime
beef would not
have met the
recent demand
for it.
production rather than simply milk production.
With milk and butter fat the primary products
produced from dairy cattle, meat is oftentimes
a secondary consideration.
Milk production requires cows to give birth
to one calf per year for lactation to occur.
Because calves compete for the milk, they are
shifted to a milk replacer allowing the cows
to be milked until production declines and
subsequently stops. The breeding and calving
cycle begins again and continues until the
productivity of the cow declines to the point
it becomes economically unfeasible. Over
the decades, the number of dairy cows has
declined, but milk production has remained
high because of the advancements in selecting
for increased milk production. Even though the
number of dairies has decreased, the size and
scope of them has increased dramatically to
the point that dairies populated with thousands
Under traditional systems, heifer calves
were needed for replacements in the dairy
industry, but bull calves were often not needed
because most dairy cows are artificially
inseminated, which drastically lowers the
demand for breeding bulls. Some bull calves
enter the veal marketing channel, but most
today will be castrated, converting them to
steers for the fed beef market. Between birth
and when they enter the feedyard, most of
these dairy calves are placed in " calf ranches, "
where they are cared for until
the time they are fed out. These
cattle are often referred to as
" calf-fed Holsteins " indicating that
they have been fed beginning as
calves with marketing programs
promoting these as higher
quality beef than other systems
of production.
ALIGNED INTERESTS
The question comes to how dairy
beef compares to native beef, the
term used to describe traditional British or
Continental European breeds. From a quality
standpoint, dairy cattle are known for their
ability to deposit marbling and produce high
USDA quality grades. In fact, dairy beef has
been a great contributor to the USDA Prime
grade. Before the recent increase in carcasses
grading USDA Prime (now around 7% to 8%),
when native cattle would grade around 3%
USDA Prime, dairy beef would grade 8%. In
addition, it would be common for dairy beef to
represent about one-third of the total carcasses
grading USDA Prime. Without dairy beef, the
supply of USDA Prime beef would not have
met the recent demand for it.
With such a grading advantage for dairy
beef, what could be the disadvantages for
increasing the production of them? There
are several drawbacks that can directly
impact the value of both dairy cattle and their
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Meat+Poultry - April 2023

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