Don’t Dig Yourself into a Heifer Shortage Hole

ZISK
Nov 18
1 min read

Strong beef prices have reshaped breeding strategies on many dairies, pushing more producers to use beef semen and capture the higher value of beef-on-dairy calves. But with fewer dairy pregnancies in the pipeline, some herds are now realizing they might have cut heifer inventories too deep.

During a recent episode of “The Dairy Podcast,” Michael Overton, global dairy platform lead in precision animal health with Zoetis, says the trend has been building for years.

“Dairy producers have been experiencing this really big boom in value for beef cross calves,” he explains. “Now, as a consequence of that, we’ve seen some producers become a bit overly aggressive with their breeding decisions, to the point where they’ve dug themselves in a little bit of a hole of not having enough heifers.”

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