Beef farmers should avoid calf selection based only on appearance
It is vital that beef farmers avoid selecting calves for purchase based solely on their appearance at two to three weeks of age, said Teagasc experts at last Tuesday’s National Beef Conference in Tullamore.
Instead, they should aim to purchase calves on their genetic merit and, by doing this, calves of low genetic merit for beef will eventually be penalised in the market.
With over 900,000 calves available for beef production currently coming from the ever expanding dairy herd, a joint industry trial has been looking at how genetics can play a role in a profitable dairy beef system.
“In the future, as beef farmers, you will need to select calves from higher genetic merit sires if you are to maximise animal performance and profitability,” farmers at the conference were told by Teagasc Director Gerry Boyle.
However, selection for beef is often not considered a high priority on dairy farms.
Because the contribution of the calf enterprise to the profit of the dairy farm is generally considered small, the most important traits for dairy farmers when select beef bulls are easy calving, short gestation, and breed.
Results from a Teagasc survey found that 43% of farmers valued easy calving as the No 1 trait when selecting a beef bull, followed closely by short gestation (42%) and by breed (15%).
If bulls with higher genetic merit for beef traits were used, there could be a major impact on a dairy-beef farmer’s income through increased carcass sales, better carcass conformation, increased numbers of animals meeting the quality assurance and breed bonus specifications, shorter finishing periods, and reduced feed costs.
This is especially important as the growth of the national dairy herd is predicted to continue, therefore the dairy beef industry will continue to expand and gain importance.
Improving the genetic merit of beef bulls for use on the dairy herd is being tackled by the Gene Ireland dairy beef programme, in conjunction with Teagasc and ABP, which was described at the conference in Tullamore.
To purchase calves of high genetic merit, use the animal search bar on the ICBF website, to check the genetic merit of an AI bull or stock bull.
Alternatively, identify bulls by using the link to the Active Bull Lists and selecting the Terminal List, under Beef. Bulls can be searched by breed, and searches can be filtered to suit the farmer’s needs (search by terminal index traits, carcass traits etc).
Communicating with local AI technicians can also enable dairy beef producers to identify dairy herds that use high genetic merit terminal bulls.
Another way to ensure the purchase of high genetic merit calves is to collaborate with dairy farmers, to negotiate mating with specific bulls, with buy-back options.
This would allow both the diary and beef enterprise to meet their requirements and potentially maximise their profit.
