Transitioning from Dairy to Beef in Wisconsin.

[slamotto]

My parents milked a small (~20) herd of holsteins for 50 years, before retiring last summer. They sold the milking cows to another farmer, and sold the farm to me. My dad still has some heifers and steers on the farm, and I've been getting more and more involved with helping out with them. I'm looking to transition over to beef. We've got 7 holstein heifers that are at or near breeding age. Two of them are Red, the rest are black. My plan is to get them all bred to Angus bulls (Red on the Red and Black on the Black). After calving, the holsteins would be sold to local dairy farmers, and I'd retain the calves. I'd raise the males as steers, and raise up the heifers to most likely be bred to a Simmental bull (Red on Red, Black on Black). Eventually I'd like to settle into a 4-breed rotation of Angus, Simmental, Hereford, and Gelbveih.

This would be more of a hobby for me than a profit venture. I'm looking to provide meat for the family, and perhaps sell some to neighbors or co-workers at some point. I realize that starting with a dairy foundation is probably not the ideal way to go, but I've also got a bit of an emotional side which wants to be able to say that my cattle can be traced back to my parent's herd.

Anyone who has any advice for dealing with the initial Angus/Holstein cross...or with the long-term 4-breed rotation...I'm all ears.

 

[CKC1586]

:welcome: ! Why not think about Hereford bull on them Holsteins???

 

[Galloways1]

I have sold black Galloway bulls, for people doing this exact same thing. The Galloway knocks the dairy look out. The steers produce great beef, and the females are easy doing and more moderate framed.

 

[slamotto]

:welcome: ! Why not think about Hereford bull on them Holsteins???

I am thinking Angus for the first cross, because of the slightly lower (on average) birth weights for Angus. But now after doing some google searches...the Birth Weight for Angus appears to be pretty similar to Hereford. I guess my perception was driven by one time, helping my parents to deliver a hereford cross calf one time that was huge, but did not survive being born.

As I mentioned, I plan to use Hereford at some point....perhaps I will think about doing some Angus and Hereford as part of the initial breeding....for a bit more variety off the bat.

 

[slamotto]

I have sold black Galloway bulls, for people doing this exact same thing. The Galloway knocks the dairy look out. The steers produce great beef, and the females are easy doing and more moderate framed.

Sounds interesting....I guess I didn't consider Galloway mostly because I was looking at the Breeds that are available via A.I. Galloway semen doesn't seem to be too widely available. I'm sure my daughter would be all for an "Oreo" calf

 

[Galloways1]

I have sold black Galloway bulls, for people doing this exact same thing. The Galloway knocks the dairy look out. The steers produce great beef, and the females are easy doing and more moderate framed.

Sounds interesting....I guess I didn't consider Galloway mostly because I was looking at the Breeds that are available via A.I. Galloway semen doesn't seem to be too widely available. I'm sure my daughter would be all for an "Oreo" calf

Slamotto- I was advising on using black Galloways, the true Fullblood Galloway. NOT BELTED. The resulting calf out of a black Galloway and a dairy cow would be a much more commercially marketable calf.

www.blegengalloways.com

 

[1wlimo]

:welcome:

 

[slamotto]

Galloway2...I see what you mean now about the different types of Galloway. I noticed from your website that you cross some with Angus....have you done any cross-breeding with any of the Continental Breeds? You don't happen to have any pictures of any Holstein/Galloway crosses, do you? I expect they will look very similar to the Holstein/Angus crosses?

 

[Galloways1]

Galloway2...I see what you mean now about the different types of Galloway. I noticed from your website that you cross some with Angus....have you done any cross-breeding with any of the Continental Breeds? You don't happen to have any pictures of any Holstein/Galloway crosses, do you? I expect they will look very similar to the Holstein/Angus crosses?

There is a big difference, unfortunately the Belties are better known, because of their "cuteness" I have dealt with the misconception for many years.

Years ago, I had Galloways crossed with traditional Simmental (red and white / Fleckvieh). I have seen Galloway crossed with just about every breed. They are a complete outcross to every breed, so you get hybrid vigor.

I do not have any Galloway X Hol pics. They look very similar to the Angus X Hol. only a little more hair, and much more efficient and hardy.

 

[regolith]

My experience of hereford over dairy is that it's harder calving and the calves are slower than Angus. Limited experience, because I won't deliberately put hereford over my cows so all calves I've seen born are from cows that have been bought in or leased the previous year.

I'm sure you've thought it over; your initial challenge with this plan will be retaining the maximum value of the heifers for milk production so that you can sell them after calving... meaning you will need to be prepared to milk them, including training them to accept milking, as soon as they calve. Then I suppose you plan to rear the calves on milk powder?
Did you consider fostering up the calves and keeping two or three heifers raising the whole lot?

I saw a pen of white galloway calves on a dairy last year, most come out white with speckles & some were grey and could be mistaken for Angus if you looked sideways at them. It's a very nice cross and the farmer told me he had a good niche market for the calves at weaning - to hobby farmers.
I have a photo somewhere of one born to a 3-yr old I had leased to that farm... I'll see if I can dig it out.

 

[regolith]

white galloway out of 3/4 Holstein 1/4 Jersey cow

 

[Ryder]

4 breed cross seems a bit much to me. What would be the point?
Choose a beef breed and just go with that. Concentrate beef genetics. You already have variety with the Holstein.

 

[Isomade]

:welcome:

 

[bigrob]

:welcome:

 

[bigbull338]

:welcome: going with an angus x hol cross calf is good an bad.the good is your adding the milk of hol to crosses.an they can raise good calves.the bad is that the cross could be docked for having the hol blood in it.but they are a good way to start a beef herd.

 

[BettyLandercasper]

Lots of folks have done this and had good luck. You are smart to sell the holsteins and not try to use them as beef cattle because that really doesn't work, they usually have way too much udder. I'd use a calving ease sire like Final ANswer, Pioneer, something calving ease. The holstein will contribute plenty of size and bone to the calf.

 

[topstock]

We are in a similar position here. We crossed our left over dairy animals to Angus and hereford bulls. No calving problems at all with the Angus, but the herefords were trouble. My dairy anmals were Holstein/Jersey/ Swedish Red crosses ( with a little brown swiss in there too) We couldnt use all the milk so some of the cows we left out in pasture with their calves like any brood cow. Even the 100% Holstein raised a good calf. I think their production adjusted itself for the calf and all were fine. The calves weaned looking real nice. I will breed these crosses back to angus and go from there.

 

[slamotto]

Been thinking about the possibility of keeping 1 or two of the holsteins around as a source of milk for the calves. So, do I try to get the milking system back up and running, or try to have the calves nurse off 1 or 2 of the cows? I've been searching the forum, and it seems that there are some folks who have luck grafting multiple calves to a cow. Can require a lot of work...but may be worth it if I don't have to milk cow(s) twice a day.

 

[bigbull338]

Been thinking about the possibility of keeping 1 or two of the holsteins around as a source of milk for the calves. So, do I try to get the milking system back up and running, or try to have the calves nurse off 1 or 2 of the cows? I've been searching the forum, and it seems that there are some folks who have luck grafting multiple calves to a cow. Can require a lot of work...but may be worth it if I don't have to milk cow(s) twice a day.

to me milking the cows with the milkers would be easier.that way you know the cows are milked out.an theres no probs.then you can bottle feed the calves.then you could sell the cows to a dairy next year when they calve again if you want.

 

[regolith]

Been thinking about the possibility of keeping 1 or two of the holsteins around as a source of milk for the calves. So, do I try to get the milking system back up and running, or try to have the calves nurse off 1 or 2 of the cows? I've been searching the forum, and it seems that there are some folks who have luck grafting multiple calves to a cow. Can require a lot of work...but may be worth it if I don't have to milk cow(s) twice a day.

to me milking the cows with the milkers would be easier.that way you know the cows are milked out.an theres no probs.then you can bottle feed the calves.then you could sell the cows to a dairy next year when they calve again if you want.

Spoken by some-one who loves hard work!
If you're going to sell your other heifers to dairies after calving you'll need to get the milking system running anyway, to milk them after they calve. And bb is right, the ones you keep will be easier to sell next year if they're accustomed to being milked.
Grafting is less work than milking 2xdaily and bottle feeding. Having the milking plant going as well will take a lot of stress out of grafting. If I'm buying calves for winter, I get them about a month before drying the herd and hold the calves in a shed to start with, putting them on the cow at milking time. If they don't fully milk the cow out, round she goes to the milkers and gets milked before letting go. If the calves aren't fully fed, a bit of milk gets poured into a bottle and the calves get fed - when I'm ready to dry the herd off the cow and calves are keeping each other both milked out and fed and don't need any more attention and none of us have had to stress each other out getting to that stage.