The Moos Room™

Brad
Welcome to the The Moos Room. Going to continue on with our venture down the beef and dairy route again, and talk a little bit about some of the research that we've done here in Minnesota. But first, I think I'm going to make this a three part series. So last week we talked about some of the research that is happening in other places, a little bit about beef on dairy and semen usage in dairy cows.

00;01;27;18 - 00;01;46;15
Brad
Today we're going to talk some of the research that we've done. And then talk about some of the new stuff that just happened within the last month here on some of the carcass data that we've collected. And then next week, I think I'm going to venture down the genome mix route. So we've taken these beef on dairy animals.

00;01;46;18 - 00;02;14;00
Brad
We've genomic tested them with a beef on dairy platform. And I wanted to share the results that we got back as far as the values for carcass traits from the genomics and how they complement the carcass data that we saw. And really, what can you do with the genomics and is it really worth it to genomic test? Terminal animal.

00;02;14;02 - 00;02;41;23
Brad
So we're going to talk about that next week. So kind of a three part series on beef on dairy for our listeners. But today let's talk about some of the research that we've done here in 2018 is when I really started going down the beef and dairy route here, just like everybody else was. Dairy calves were worth less than beef cross calves.

00;02;41;23 - 00;03;04;29
Brad
So and trying to really limit our heifer numbers. And that's how we got into beef on Dairy Crossing. When I first started with Limousin, because Limousin was the probably popular choice at that time especially I live out here in western Minnesota and Limousin is quite popular out here in the western part of the state. So we were using Limousin as well.

00;03;05;01 - 00;03;31;14
Brad
So we bred them to our dairy cows and the first study that we did was just trying to figure out what happened. As pre weaned calves. I think most of the studies that we see on beef, on dairy genetics are in the feedlot. And what happens after they've been raised to 4 or 500 pounds. Then we see what studies people have done, but we kind of forget about what happens as pre weaned calves.

00;03;31;16 - 00;03;56;28
Brad
So I had some Limousin cross calves and we raised them on an auto feeder that we had here at our research center. So we had Limousin crossbred heifers. So heifers in a beef and dairy situation that's a whole different ballgame. I don't. Most of the research is not talking about these beef on dairy crossbred heifer calves and how to feed them.

00;03;57;00 - 00;04;30;25
Brad
And maybe that'll be happening into the future. But most of the time we're focusing on the male calves. So we kept some of these Limousin cross heifer calves. We also had Limousin cross bull calves and we compared them to dairy calves, Holstein and some of our crossbred animals. So we found that the Limousin cross bull calves, if we compare them to Holsteins on average are about 10 pounds more than what dairy calves were.

00;04;30;27 - 00;05;05;00
Brad
Bull calves were about 4 pounds more than the Limousin cross heifer calves. So the Limousin crossbow calves can be a little bit larger. What about gain average daily gain? Those Limousin crossbred dairy bull calves had the best growth 2.2 pounds per day average daily gain through weaning, and we weaned these calves at eight weeks of age. The Limousin crossbred heifer calves were just slightly less than those bull calves, but they were more than a Holstein.

00;05;05;04 - 00;05;38;10
Brad
So we got good growth out of these Limousin crossbred calves, compared to dairy calves. The interesting part about this was it comes into efficiency and milk consumption. So they were on an auto feeder. We recorded all of their milk intake. The Limousin cross calves on average consumed about 50 less leaders across the eight week, so about one liter less of milk per day than the regular dairy calves.

00;05;38;12 - 00;06;15;23
Brad
So if you add that up, obviously you get less intake for those Limousin crossbred calves and you get more growth. So that is really what hybrid vigor is, is you're getting more growth out of those animals with reduced intake. They're way more efficient than a dairy calf. We talk about total cost. If you add up the cost. Yes, those Limousin crossbred calves had less cost per day compared to dairy cabs.

00;06;15;25 - 00;06;44;19
Brad
Maybe you wouldn't think about it as much. If I look at it across the eight weeks, it's about $15, so maybe about $0.50 less per day in cost for those beef and dairy crosses compared to dairy cows. So that's really where we started, because trying to figure out how to feed these pre weaned beef on dairy crosses and there's some people trying to figure it out but obviously not very many.

00;06;44;20 - 00;07;08;17
Brad
There's a lot of information that can be garnered from the pre weaned calf stage. Because that probably sets us up for what happens at the end of their life before harvest. So let's talk about our study. So as you know I have not necessarily think that one breed is the best for beef on Dairy Crossing. So we went down the road and over time I have certainly progressed.

00;07;08;17 - 00;07;39;14
Brad
We went from Limousin and then our calf buyer, we had talked to them and maybe wanted to move to Angus. So we started breeding to Angus in all of our animals to see what happened. And then it was like, well, I've seen some other farms that were using Simmental, Sharla and some other Wagyu breeds. So I thought, well, let's start figuring out what breeds can work for beef on Dairy Crossing.

00;07;39;16 - 00;08;10;08
Brad
So we took our dairy herd, and obviously I was using this to limit heifer numbers as well because we use semen. So we used a lot of beef semen. And I bred our cows to Angus and Sharla Hurford, Limousin and Simmental. So we used five breeds to try and generate some of these beef on dairy crosses, because I wasn't sure which breed would be the best.

00;08;10;08 - 00;08;37;17
Brad
So again we fed them through the pre weaned calf stage because I was interested in that. We put them on our automatic calf feeder so we could actually get milk intake. We could get growth every day of those calves because I was really curious what happens during the pre wean phase. So here is what we found during pre weaning.

00;08;37;19 - 00;09;24;23
Brad
So if you think about birth weight on these calves Angus by far the lowest birth weight by 10 pounds. They were 81 pound calves on Angus. The other breeds were 91 to 95. Simmental was 95 but all relatively in the 90s, with Angus being slightly less well. We weaned these calves at eight weeks. What about weaning weights? Herford had the highest weaning weights of these beef on dairy crosses, 241 pounds Angus 226 and the other breeds right in there about 220 pounds.

00;09;25;00 - 00;09;56;02
Brad
So Herford by far was 20 to 30 pounds more than some of these other ones at eight weeks of weaning. And sort of if you look at it from an average daily gain perspective, the Halfords were 2.4 pounds average daily gain Angus 2.1, Limousin 2.0, Simmental 2.1 and Charlotte 1.98. So man, those herds really grew during the pre weaning phase and the other breeds did just as well.

00;09;56;03 - 00;10;15;00
Brad
All of them grow really well in the pre weaning cafes and if you feed them enough milk and give them grain they're going to do well regardless of what breed they are. And we'll talk a little bit later. The Halfords had the the best average daily gain. Well it may be translated into a little more fat on them when they went to harvest.

00;10;15;06 - 00;11;02;19
Brad
So these calves, once they got weaned, they went into a feedlot and were fed corn, based diet, through finishing. And we weighed them once a week to look at their growth. So what does their growth look like? You know, they were all about the same size coming off of weaning at eight weeks of age. Now, when you look at growth of these calves across time, it's interesting because the Angus, the salmon tall in the sharley, had really good growth during about the first six months after we put them into feedlot, they grew really well.

00;11;02;22 - 00;11;49;07
Brad
All of these animals grew quite well. However, at about six months of age, maybe the Angus animals started to slow down a little bit. Didn't grow as fast as the Simmental in the sharley. The Hereford and the Limousin were pretty similar in growth comparable to the other breeds, and by the end of their growth period, the Angus, Herford and Limousin were all about the same size, roughly 1200 kilos to 1,300 pounds, and the Chala in the Simmental were probably 50 pounds more on average, compared to the other breeds, so the Simmental initially had quite a bit of growth across that time.

00;11;49;07 - 00;12;34;00
Brad
So let's compare average daily gain from birth till when they got harvested. Average daily gain was Angus 3.18 Chala 3.1 Hurford 3.21. Limousin 2.94 and Simmental 2.96. So they all had really good growth. Close to 3 pounds average daily gain across their lifetime. Angus and Herford were the highest actually, and if you look at the total gain that these animals had across their lifetime, about 1415 months, the Angus were 1,250 pounds Sharley 1325.

00;12;34;00 - 00;13;06;13
Brad
So the Charlotte put on 75 more pounds than the Angus did Hurford. 1277 so just a little bit more than the Angus Limousin. 1223 so the Limousin crosses were less than the Angus and Simmental 1230 so they were less than the Angus as well. So the Limousin Simmental maybe didn't quite grow as well towards the finishing phase. But man those shawls, they put on a lot of growth if you look at days to harvest.

00;13;06;15 - 00;13;36;25
Brad
So this is days from birth till age that we harvested them. The Angus were by far the lowest 428 days, the Charlie 460 days. So 30 more days to harvest on those Charlie's so they had more time to grow. Hurford 433 about the same as the Angus, the Limousin in the seven tall 450. So the Angus and the Hurford were about 20 days less than the Charlotte Limousin in Simmental as far as time to harvest.

00;13;36;28 - 00;14;03;28
Brad
And that can really equate to more money, three weeks less in the feedlot. That certainly would be real dollars. So we harvested them at Tyson Fresh Meats in Dakota City, Nebraska, where they processed 5 to 6000 head per day. So it is quite interesting. We are very grateful for working with Tyson to be able to let us into the harvest plant, to collect this data on, on our steers.

00;14;04;01 - 00;14;32;04
Brad
It is fascinating to be in one of those facilities, just to see the immense how animals are graded and how they are fabricated. It is quite impressive. So let's talk about these animals at harvest and what happened. So they all went there. We harvested them and got actually lots of good data at the plant. And then we also collected strip loin.

00;14;32;04 - 00;15;01;02
Brad
So we collected some meat off of these animals to bring back to Minnesota here and do some additional analysis. So if you think about carcass weight, hog carcass weight was the highest for Charlie and Herford. Charlie was by far the highest 870 pounds hot carcass weight compared to Angus 817 so 60 pounds more carcass weight on a Charlie compared to an Angus.

00;15;01;05 - 00;15;33;18
Brad
The Herford were at 860, so just slightly less than the Charlie. Limousin and Simmental were the same as Angus 812 and 819. So really comparable. But the Charlie and the Hereford had more carcass weight. Ribeye area was quite interesting. Rib eye area was about the same for all of the breeds. Angus Charlie Herford Simmental right around 12.1 to 12.4.

00;15;33;20 - 00;16;07;01
Brad
Rib eye area. However, the Limousin had a rib eye area of 13.9 so almost two more inches of rib eye area compared to the other breeds. And that's what the Limousin is known for. Big rib eyes, big rib eyes. So we saw that in those Limousin crosses and pack fat. Well what's your guess? Herford had the most back fat 0.64 compared to the other breeds were 0.46 to 0.48.

00;16;07;03 - 00;16;41;02
Brad
So almost quite a bit point two more inches of back fat in a Herford animal compared to the other breeds kidney, pelvic and heart fat all about the same. Actually, Limousin was a little bit less than the other breeds, all of them right around 1.82 to 1.8 for Limousin, 1.7 for so pretty comparable. But the biggest thing was that rib eye area was the largest for Limousin back fat, the most for the Herford animals.

00;16;41;04 - 00;17;07;21
Brad
So it really if you look at the yield grade so we can get yield grades based on these carcasses. If you think about it from a fat perspective, higher yield grade is more fat, higher yield grade, more weight, more muscling. So who had the highest yield grade? Herford had the highest yield grade because there were just more fat on the animal back fat Simmental was less than than the Herford 3.4.

00;17;07;27 - 00;17;39;06
Brad
Herford 3.8. Yield grade Charlotte 3.3 Angus, 3.2 Limousin 2.97. So higher yield grades for Herford by a considerable margin because of more back fat on those animals when we looked at grades. So you're interested in how did these animals grade out? Choice Prime select did any go cab? What were the other programs that were listed for these steers?

00;17;39;09 - 00;18;13;09
Brad
Well, interestingly. 76% of them went choice. We had a lot of animals go choice and that's what we want to see. Most definitely we want choice. Prime is even better. We had actually five animals go prime, so we had of the animals that went prime, two were Angus, one was Herford and two Simmental were the ones that went prime.

00;18;13;11 - 00;18;37;22
Brad
We did unfortunately have four select animals and there's nothing wrong with select animals that just they just didn't have enough marbling compared to the others. It's just less marbling, more lean meat. And those were Charlotte and Limousin, and you would maybe expect that from those breeds to have a little bit higher percentage of select because not as well marbled animals.

00;18;37;22 - 00;19;05;22
Brad
But we had a lot of the all of the breeds had a high percentage animals go choice, which is good. Now, if you look at Cab so certified Angus beef, that was a program that we had there. All of the Angus except for one went cab. You would figure that most of them would have a black heid. There was one Angus Holstein that went choice but was not cab.

00;19;05;28 - 00;19;33;27
Brad
We had some salmon to go cab. So Simmental bulls, black bulls that we used went cab. We had a Limousin go cab obviously use black hide there and we had a Herford ghost cab price. Cab on a Herford. Isn't that interesting. So we have this Herford cross no Angus whatsoever in it and it goes certified Angus beef.

00;19;33;29 - 00;19;59;27
Brad
We were quite happy with the the quality grades that we had from these steers. Like I said, mostly choice, some primes. An interesting part is that when we were at the Tyson plant, there was quite a few animals that they had called that went V. I'm trying to figure out what is that? I didn't really understand it. They kept saying Hy-Vee, Hy-Vee.

00;19;59;27 - 00;20;30;05
Brad
Well, it's a grocery store here in the Midwest. Hy-Vee has their own specifications for beef that they want for their customers. So we actually had quite a few of our steers go Hy-Vee, which is, high quality meats as well that go into the Hy-Vee grocery stores. We had one steer that went into a BMA program, and it was a Charlotte Cross.

00;20;30;08 - 00;20;59;07
Brad
He had the highest carcass weight, 1,000 pounds. Carcass weight was a big steer. And he went BMA, which is basically beef maturity. It was looked like he was getting older and they put him in to be maturity. I actually looked at this steer on the rail and he had a little bit darker meat, darker red meat than the others, maybe had pretty decent marbling.

00;20;59;10 - 00;21;27;21
Brad
But he was a massive carcass and so that was the only one. Maybe that Charlie got a little too big for us. We didn't get any discounts, no discounts for him by going select. So let's talk about some carcass meat quality characteristics. And then we'll end talking about some financial things that we found. So we took off some strip loins from the steers.

00;21;27;29 - 00;21;51;07
Brad
And at the Tyson plant were able to bring them back here. We age them for ten days. And then some of them we cooked and some of them we scored for color score. If you look at shear force. So this is Warner Brat shear force. So it's the amount of force that it takes to go through a piece of meat.

00;21;51;09 - 00;22;23;27
Brad
So when you think about shear force values, all of them were pretty comparable. The Limousin was a little bit less, which probably indicated that the Limousin steaks maybe were a little bit less tender than some of the other ones. Color score all about the same. Angus was a little bit higher, probably the highest for an L star value, which is lightness.

00;22;23;29 - 00;23;00;02
Brad
So it measures the light of those steaks. L star is brightness. So the Angus steaks were a little bit brighter. If you think about redness. The Simmental steaks had the highest redness value, Angus was the lowest. And if you think about yellow and blue tint they were all about the same. So Angus, less light and less red on their steaks compared to the other ones.

00;23;00;06 - 00;23;31;19
Brad
Limousin maybe a little bit less tender. So what about economics of all these animals. So we got the harvest sheet back from Tyson on these animals. Our base price was $3.20 a pound. That's the base for all of these animals, which was actually pretty good based on carcass weight. The prime grading was $0.25 a pound. So that was the premium for Prime.

00;23;31;19 - 00;24;05;28
Brad
So you get an extra $0.25 a pound for prime cab, an extra $0.06 per pound for cab, and an extra 13.5 cents for choice. There was no Dax for the for select animals. As I look at the harvest sheet, to know that you got a better premium for choice beef compared to the cab. So regardless of what these animals did, we obviously Prime is the best.

00;24;05;28 - 00;24;27;25
Brad
You get 25 more since that's wonderful. But we did better by having these animals go choice than they did cab. Now that's how we got paid. Everybody can probably argue whether Cab is good or not and whether you get the premium or not, but it appeared that based on our harvest sheet, we did not get much of a premium for cab.

00;24;27;26 - 00;25;03;08
Brad
We got all the premium for the choice. So like I said, our cost overall was $1.99 live weight and on the carcass weight 328 a pound. That's how we were paid for these steers. Now, if you look at it from, let's compare the breeds from a price standpoint. If you think about it from a price per pound of carcass weight, Angus $3.32 Sharley $3.30.

00;25;03;08 - 00;25;50;25
Brad
Hurford 334 Limousin. 330 Simmental 337. So we got really good prices for all of these breeds. Regardless of how they performed, if you look at it from a total revenue standpoint. So total price with the premium for each steer on average, Angus $2,709 Charlotte $2,865 Hurford 2863 Limousin, 2705 Simmental 2738. So we got more total revenue for the Charlotte and the Herford animals than we did for the other breeds, which is interesting.

00;25;50;27 - 00;26;20;11
Brad
Now you could say, well, why is that? Well, the Charlotte were much bigger. We got more growth out of them. They were larger when they went to harvest. There was larger carcass weights on those Charlotte and Halfords. So in the end we got better revenue for them because they were growth year animals. Regardless of if those Charlotte went cab or prime the like I said, they all went choice except for a couple, but we did really well from a price standpoint.

00;26;20;11 - 00;26;54;28
Brad
But with all of the breeds, if you take out the premiums, it's the same just base price. Just thinking about it from a live way. No, no prime, no choice, no cab, no nothing. The Hurford and Charlotte animals got about $100 more per steer compared to the other breeds. Charlotte was 2783 Angus 2618 Hurford about the same 2601 for the seven tolls.

00;26;55;01 - 00;27;31;19
Brad
So almost 175 more dollars for a Charlotte animal than we did on the Simmental. And we didn't have any premiums included in that. So it is interesting when you really break this down from a economic perspective, what would you do? I don't know, I would probably use multiple breeds. I'm not necessarily sold now we could say that or Brad could say, well, this kind of proves my point that all of the beef breeds do well when we cross them with dairy cattle, which is I think that's right.

00;27;31;19 - 00;27;57;05
Brad
It depends on your management, depends on your market, depends on your feeding program. But what we found was that all of the breeds did well and they were very comparable. Whether they were Angus in Black-Eyed or Charlotte, these mousey white collared animals, or Hurford. A lot of people have discounted that one, but they were good animals as well.

00;27;57;07 - 00;28;31;17
Brad
So in the end we have more going to go to market. So there'll be a few more probably within the next month or so. We'll have another group of the same breed groups go to market. So we'll have more data by the end of the spring. But I think this gives you an idea about what is happening out there, and that you can make money with any of these breeds in crossing dairy cows, if you feed them well, feed them right and take care of them, they're going to make you money regardless of what breed they are.

00;28;31;20 - 00;29;01;15
Brad
So next week we're talk about the genomics and kind of compare and see what the genomic tests are on these steers and see how well they compare to the genomic tests compared to what we saw from a carcass perspective. So with that, I think we'll end there today. If you have any comments or questions or particularly scathing rebuttals, because I didn't talk good about some of the breeds in many different ways, I think that all breeds were good in some things and not so good in others.

00;29;01;17 - 00;29;24;29
Brad
But if you have any comments, feel free to let me know. You can let us know at the Moose Room. That's moss r o m at NZ. You or look us up on the web. University of Minnesota Livestock Extension. And with that, thanks for listening today and we'll see you next week talking about genomics on these animals.