Cracking the Nutrition Code for Beef-on-Dairy Cattle

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5 days ago
1 min read

Beef-on-dairy cattle are no longer a novelty. They are established in the U.K., growing in importance in Ireland and other European countries and becoming a permanent part of the U.S. beef supply as the beef cow herd remains tight. Their performance now affects feed efficiency, days on feed and carcass value.

Working firsthand with these cattle has convinced me that we should feed them as a unique biological type. Take an Angus × Holstein steer. It is not a Holstein with a better carcass, nor an Angus with more frame. It combines the appetite, skeletal growth and later maturity of dairy genetics with the earlier fat deposition and carcass traits of the beef sire. But change the beef genetics and the animal changes with it. Even beef-on-dairy is not one uniform biological type. That variability complicates feeding decisions.

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