Anyone doing this?

[talldog]

Had a Hols. cow crossed to a Shorthorn bull, the steer grew to about 1800 pounds.. Very large animal, made great beef and his red and white hide was beautiful... I had it tanned and it hung on the wall for years....

I think they call that an ox.

That's what I thought !!

 

[MoGal]

My parents started a herd years ago from dairy cross heifers that they bought and bucket fed. Most dairies around here will use a black low birth weight bull or even a Hereford bull to breed their first calf heifers. We used to get the calves from a couple dairies, band the bull calves and sell them in the fall, keep the heifers and breed back to whatver beef bull we were using at the time. This gave any replacement heifers 1/4 dairy blood, usually Holstein and this gave them plenty of milking ability. These made some good mama cows.

That's how we started upteen years ago too. Part of the problem with it is the forage base. We were on irrigated pasture and those half/quarter holsteins did fine and made great cows. With the dryland pasture here they don;t fare very well.
When we started back up again here we wetn with pure beef breeds, I don;t have the years to raise that many generations of aniamls to get to the point that the dairy (it gets killed at the salebarn) character is bred out of the calves.

Dun: do you think crossing the 1/4 or 1/2 holstein cows to a charolais, or for that matter any continental bull, would balance out the rear quarter "dairy look"........... I agree with the others, they are mighty fine mama cows. Their first calf, the heifer gets a little thin, and many times I wean them at 5 months instead of 7, but thereafter she holds her weight well with all other calves and they do have a nice bag and do raise a good calf. This is where we are at, and I want to get a nice charolais bull this fall (wonder if there are any charolais bulls with a piedmontese behind??? lol)

 

[milkmaid]

When I've sold my half Angus half Holstein calves at the sale barn, they sold like straight beef calves. Can't tell the difference. They make some great eating and finish easily without a lot of input too. I've got one going in the freezer at the beginning of September.

 

[3waycross]

When I've sold my half Angus half Holstein calves at the sale barn, they sold like straight beef calves. Can't tell the difference. They make some great eating and finish easily without a lot of input too. I've got one going in the freezer at the beginning of September.

With the experience I have had selling straight Holstein boxed beef I would guess that you are going to have a really great piece of meat with that combo. Marbling will be very good and YG should be excellant. How old will it be at slaughter.

 

[dun]

Dun: do you think crossing the 1/4 or 1/2 holstein cows to a charolais, or for that matter any continental bull, would balance out the rear quarter "dairy look"........... I agree with the others, they are mighty fine mama cows. Their first calf, the heifer gets a little thin, and many times I wean them at 5 months instead of 7, but thereafter she holds her weight well with all other calves and they do have a nice bag and do raise a good calf. This is where we are at, and I want to get a nice charolais bull this fall (wonder if there are any charolais bulls with a piedmontese behind??? lol)

It might. But unlike Milkmaids experience, even 1/4 dairy gets docked for dairy in this area. I don;t know if it's muscle shape or what, but they get picked out by the graders.

 

[backhoeboogie]

Dun: do you think crossing the 1/4 or 1/2 holstein cows to a charolais, or for that matter any continental bull, would balance out the rear quarter "dairy look"........... I agree with the others, they are mighty fine mama cows. Their first calf, the heifer gets a little thin, and many times I wean them at 5 months instead of 7, but thereafter she holds her weight well with all other calves and they do have a nice bag and do raise a good calf. This is where we are at, and I want to get a nice charolais bull this fall (wonder if there are any charolais bulls with a piedmontese behind??? lol)

It might. But unlike Milkmaids experience, even 1/4 dairy gets docked for dairy in this area. I don;t know if it's muscle shape or what, but they get picked out by the graders.

Sell them as 3 weights and they ring the bell when they go through the ring. Probably because momma has so much milk and they look top of the line. My steers are brangus sired and mostly black.

 

[dun]

Sell them as 3 weights and they ring the bell when they go through the ring. Probably because momma has so much milk and they look top of the line. My steers are brangus sired and mostly black.

That would probably do it. Of course then you have a dead beat cow sitting aorund 9 months of the year.

 

[milkmaid]

When I've sold my half Angus half Holstein calves at the sale barn, they sold like straight beef calves. Can't tell the difference. They make some great eating and finish easily without a lot of input too. I've got one going in the freezer at the beginning of September.

With the experience I have had selling straight Holstein boxed beef I would guess that you are going to have a really great piece of meat with that combo. Marbling will be very good and YG should be excellant. How old will it be at slaughter.

15 months, should weigh about 1250lbs, maybe a touch over. I finished two of the same crosses the same way about two years ago, some of the best meat we've had. This one will be on grain for 90 days, the previous two were on grain for 150 days. I'm still anticipating her to taste really good though.

 

[djinwa]

Okay, so I hear you all talking about dairies wanting to cross with beef.

I'm a small acreage guy who just wants a single small cow for milk and meat. My ideal is a lowline angus/Jersey cross, one of which I now have. But in case my cow dies (100% death rate), I'm thinking of how to get another one. So I called a local Jersey dairy and asked if she'd cross one of her cows with lowline semen. She got all offended and told me how much she can get for a dairy heifer. Even though I told her I'd pay that much, she wanted nothing to do with the idea.

So I got on the Jersey directory and emailed 4 Jersey dairies in the state and asked if they'd make me a heifer and I never heard from them.

Wonder if I should try again now with the lower milk prices - maybe dairy heifers in less demand?

 

[3waycross]

Okay, so I hear you all talking about dairies wanting to cross with beef.

I'm a small acreage guy who just wants a single small cow for milk and meat. My ideal is a lowline angus/Jersey cross, one of which I now have. But in case my cow dies (100% death rate), I'm thinking of how to get another one. So I called a local Jersey dairy and asked if she'd cross one of her cows with lowline semen. She got all offended and told me how much she can get for a dairy heifer. Even though I told her I'd pay that much, she wanted nothing to do with the idea.

So I got on the Jersey directory and emailed 4 Jersey dairies in the state and asked if they'd make me a heifer and I never heard from them.

Wonder if I should try again now with the lower milk prices - maybe dairy heifers in less demand?

Why not look for cull dairy cows( low producing) not downers. and try to make your own

 

[djinwa]

Why not look for cull dairy cows( low producing) not downers. and try to make your own

I've considered that, but didn't want the bother of having a cow hanging around that I don't need. With my luck she'd have 5 bull calves in a row. Was hoping the scenarios painted here were the case and if a dairy had some cows they didn't care about breeding to dairy, they could breed a few of them to beef for better odds of a heifer.

Another option is buying a heifer from Jersey dairy and renting her to a nearby Holstein dairy which does my AI. He said he'd breed her as I want and would milk her. Was hoping to avoid all the hassle, but maybe that's what it'll take - or I can just keep one of my heifers that would be 1/4 dairy. Even they give enough milk for us - now we're selling some with the 1/2 dairy small cow.

 

[backhoeboogie]

Sell them as 3 weights and they ring the bell when they go through the ring. Probably because momma has so much milk and they look top of the line. My steers are brangus sired and mostly black.

That would probably do it. Of course then you have a dead beat cow sitting aorund 9 months of the year.

My "deadbeat" nursed another 8 calves the last year she had a bull calf. The mistake I made was going to long on her. She didn't calve on a 12 month interval that following year. Right now she has 3 calves on her. The biggest cow I own is a 4 year old out of that nurse cow. She's not an F1 because the dam is 1/2 holstein 1/2 jersey but she is bigger than all F1's I own.

 

[andybob]

An alternative is to get an existing small dual purpose breed such as Dexter or Shetland.

 

[regolith]

Was hoping the scenarios painted here were the case and if a dairy had some cows they didn't care about breeding to dairy, they could breed a few of them to beef for better odds of a heifer.

djinwa, I suspect the dairies you've contacted simply don't want the hassle of breeding a cow specially for a buyer who might not turn up for the calf nine months later. You need to go the other way round - find a dairy with beef cross calves being born and ask to buy a calf.
Even with already breeding to beef I wouldn't do this for anyone outside of family - just too many things can go wrong.
Even with knowing the matings, I don't know in advance which of my cows will have saleable calves (good-sized, healthy, appropriate markings, meet the market requirements). Apart from dairy heifers, so far I've seen a total of 2 calves out of 140 cows that I could have sold. You might have liked some of the little Angus-cross heifers out of heifers, but I couldn't have sold them on the open market here.