Dairy Herd Transition to Beef?

[Curtis36]

Hi everyone, I have a rather long question.
My father is a dairy farmer in Wisconsin and he is about to turn 60. He milks 26 cows in a stanchion barn and has been doing it his entire life. Unfortunatley none of us kids are interested in milking (all I do is a several beef, it's too much work to milk and not enough payoff, especially with only 26 cows!) and one day (which will be a very sad day) he will have to stop milking since his hips bother him like many other dairy farmers' do. The problem is I can't imagine him ever completely retiring. He's the kind of guy that if he gets sick and has to stay inside for a day he goes crazy.
My question is has anyone ever heard of someone transitioning their herd from a dairy to a beef herd? He could start breeding all his cows to an angus, continue milking for a few years yet and when it's all said and done have a decent beef herd. Before everyone jumps down my throat about it... I know they won't be a good as straight angus, but holstein steers still get a pretty good price around here. Fed high yeilding choice holstein steers and choice beef steers go for virtually the same right now, 1.13 to 1.20 a pound.
What do all of you think? Have you ever heard of anyone doing this?

 

[dun]

2 friends of mine did it but used a charolais bull and bred the resulting heifers back to an angus.
The other used an angus bull and bred the resulting heifers to a Hereford. When they retired from dairying they sold the straight Holsteins and used the money to buy beef cows. One had moved his 2 and 3 teaters to his beef herd the past few years and still has several of them being bred to either a Hereford or Angus.

 

[LauraleesFarm]

Many of the dairies in this area have done exactly that. I'm told there is some sort of governmental buy out program if the small guy will shut down the dairy. Not sure how that works.

There are lots of old dairy buildings standing around. Kind of sad.

If you were in the south I would recommend you start with a Brahman bull.....

 

[Taurus]

I would put a Hereford bull on these dairy cows (assuming they are Holsteins) and they will give you mostly black baldies then put Charolais bull on the crossbred cows. Or put a black angus bull on the dairy cows to get some solid black heifers.

 

[AllForage]

In my opinion DO NOT breed up from Holsteins. The extreme frame and hard doing nature will be very hard to breed out. Neighbor did the same thing and they are giant meatless freaks. Sell the dairy females and start with beef heifers or cows.

Biggest problem is northern dairyman will lose money as they cannot give up the silage and high cost feed. It requires a paradigm shift for feeding. Also learning to manage pasture is a new skill that needs to be learned. There is no point in bleeding money just to stay busy. If one wants to confinement feed then try feeding out steers.

My 2 cents. Where are you at in WI?

 

[bse]

Around here the 2 x dairymen I know are some of the best cattlemen there progressive wanting to do better all the time they didn't cross with there dairy cows they got out and started over. I think it was mentioned about the grass and that would be a challenge the few dairys left around here have pigweed pastures.

 

[Till-Hill]

It will work just fine. We run my beef bulls clean-up on our hard breeding dairy cows. AllForage there is not extreme frame in ALL of dairy herds anymore. Ours cows ave for the year culling 1330 lbs.

Them x-breds are going to be a little harder breeding. As heifers I split them into two groups as our dairy cows calve year round. March/April calving, Sept/Oct. Let them get a little age on them before you go breeding them seems to help. I move the falls to spring herd if they come up open but springs get shipped if open. I'd say half of them hold decent condition and the other half look like death after weaning calves off grass/hay.

Angus is a fine cross if the bull is really fleshy. Use calving ease sires with high maternal calving ease also and very low milk with a history of good udders. Don't worry about WW/YW. I like our Hereford cross the best but you do get a lot of white and the resulting steers do get discounted for dairy influence.

On them dairy F1's I used some Pharo bulls and was pretty happy last two years. Even the left over club calf semen I have left works really well on them. But as I said be more concerned with fleshing ability than breed's. Good luck

 

[bigbull338]

we did the samething but only because we didnt want a mean rank holstein bull around my neices an nephews.an we kept the 3 teated cows back.we ran hereford bulls with our dairy cows.

 

[Howdyjabo]

Would it be possible to just make the dairy cows recipients and have full blood beef cows to start with?

 

[Taurus]

In my opinion DO NOT breed up from Holsteins. The extreme frame and hard doing nature will be very hard to breed out. Neighbor did the same thing and they are giant meatless freaks. Sell the dairy females and start with beef heifers or cows.

It could be said same thing about other large framed dairy breeds, not just Holsteins. That said, there are many moderate framed dairy cows these days and many of dairy x beef cows ended up as great calf raisers & weaned off heavyweights if bred to right beef bull.

 

[dun]

In my opinion DO NOT breed up from Holsteins. The extreme frame and hard doing nature will be very hard to breed out. Neighbor did the same thing and they are giant meatless freaks. Sell the dairy females and start with beef heifers or cows.

It could be said same thing about other large framed dairy breeds, not just Holsteins. That said, there are many moderate framed dairy cows these days and many of dairy x beef cows ended up as great calf raisers & weaned off heavyweights if bred to right beef bull.

Years ago we started out with Holteinxangus or Holsten xHereford heifers. When we were partnered up with an alfalfa farmer it worked really well, once we had to go to strictly irrigated pasture it didn;t work as well. Cows raised boomer claves but lost a lot of condition having to work for their groceries.

 

[Taurus]

In my opinion DO NOT breed up from Holsteins. The extreme frame and hard doing nature will be very hard to breed out. Neighbor did the same thing and they are giant meatless freaks. Sell the dairy females and start with beef heifers or cows.

It could be said same thing about other large framed dairy breeds, not just Holsteins. That said, there are many moderate framed dairy cows these days and many of dairy x beef cows ended up as great calf raisers & weaned off heavyweights if bred to right beef bull.

Years ago we started out with Holteinxangus or Holsten xHereford heifers. When we were partnered up with an alfalfa farmer it worked really well, once we had to go to strictly irrigated pasture it didn;t work as well. Cows raised boomer claves but lost a lot of condition having to work for their groceries.

I forget about what type of pasture the OP are putting them on. I had few F1 Holstein x Angus cross and Brown Swiss x Angus cross many years ago, some worked for us and some culled themselves for come up open or udder problems but the culls were quickly replaced by beef cow (sell the culls at the salebarn and invest $$ into a bred beef heifer/cow). That is how our family started our beef cattle business.

 

[denvermartinfarms]

You could do it, but I would breed them to angus,then breed those half Holstein heifers to another angus and have there calves for cows. It would be about 6 years before he had any calves out of those better cows, so that's why I would probably sell the dairy cows, and just go buy some good bred beef cows.

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

Our cousins run a diary, and milk around 150 cows. They breed ALL their heifers to calving ease angus bulls, and the resulting calves are easy to see as beef calves because they are usually black. They have kept several heifers, and milk them in the parlor with the other cows, and they get along fine. Lots of people out here have done that, switched their herd over. If it makes your dad happy, do it. Or, like another poster mentioned, buy some good beef embryos and put them in the dairy cows and raise your beef herd that way. Easy to do!

 

[Curtis36]

Well as far as managing the pasture goes, my dad has always done rotational grazing. He lets them pick through one pasture and when they get that mowed down pretty good he moves them to another one and chops the weeds down. And he doesn't do silage, just corn and hay. Any corn he has left over he could sell.

Thanks for all the info everyone! I have never actually heard of anyone doing this before and couldn't find any information on it. So it is cool to see that it has been done before.

The only snag I think in this plan is that he hates bulls. They had one when he was younger and he says that they're too dangerous so he AI's. Lol I have a mini donk stud and he doesn't even like him!

 

[Curtis36]

Oh and it wouldn't be just to "stay busy". They need something to "retire" on!

We were just brainstorming ways to slowly transition. He's not ready to stop milking yet. Makes him sad to think of loosing another family dairy farm. Used to be farms all up and down our road, now he is the only one.

It also makes me sad to see an empty old farm. It looks naked to me.

 

[Curtis36]

Would it be possible to just make the dairy cows recipients and have full blood beef cows to start with?

That would be a good idea... didn't think of that

 

[Curtis36]

Our cousins run a diary, and milk around 150 cows. They breed ALL their heifers to calving ease angus bulls, and the resulting calves are easy to see as beef calves because they are usually black. They have kept several heifers, and milk them in the parlor with the other cows, and they get along fine. Lots of people out here have done that, switched their herd over. If it makes your dad happy, do it. Or, like another poster mentioned, buy some good beef embryos and put them in the dairy cows and raise your beef herd that way. Easy to do!

I had wondered if he would still be able to milk the F1 cows... interesting...

 

[Curtis36]

I would put a Hereford bull on these dairy cows (assuming they are Holsteins) and they will give you mostly black baldies then put Charolais bull on the crossbred cows. Or put a black angus bull on the dairy cows to get some solid black heifers.

He has mostly holsteins and a few jersy

 

[cbcr]

Yes it can be done. It used to be years ago that many dairies would run an Angus bull with their heifers so that they would have a smaller calf the first time. It would surprise you how many beef herd were started with those Angus / Holstein cross heifers.

And as has been posted, on older cows a Hereford would certainly work quite well too. It is hard to beat those black baldy mommas.

Bottom line is what you are asking about can be done and work very well. As for the breed of choice it is up to you. What is your preference?