Future Looks Good For Beef-On-Dairy

Purina Animal Nutrition is out with its 2nd Edition of the Beef-on-Dairy Industry Report.  Laurence Williams, Beef-On-Dairy Development Specialist at Purina expects the sector to continue to grow.

He said he sees these dairy cows continuing to fill a portion of the fed cattle sector, because of the quality of the animals, with many hitting the upper two-thirds choice as well as prime, which the consumers love.  Not only is there demand for quality beef, but Williams said the pricing gap beginning to narrow between these dairy cows and native beef cattle.

“They don't have the red meat yield that the native beef cattle do, but they certainly feel that that quality component," Williams said.  "I just think this is a mature sector.  We've hit a number of animals, I think we have four million a year that come out through the dairy population. And the dairymen now see them as quite a value add, quite a revenue stream. So it's important for the dairy, helps them manage risk.  And for the dairy, that's just part of their value proposition.”

Williams said on the producer side, dairy operators need to better manage these cows, from birth up.  That means not only better feed, but working to make sure these young cows never experience a bad day. 

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