While spring has arrived, higher milk prices have not. The immediate concerns on most producers across the U.S. is just how long low milk prices will continue.
Independent dairy financial advisor, Gary Sipiorski, says producers are trying to find ways to lower expenses without impacting herd health or milk production. He shares that producers need to revisit their heifer inventory and calculate just how many heifers they will need in the coming year.
“They cost $2,200 to raise or more,” Sipiorski says. “Beeding for beef right now is paying up. Some producers are even thinking of selling all their heifers. That is a serious decision.”
The high prices of beef are boosting dairy producers bottom line, as week-old beef crosses are going for a pretty penny. Sipiorski says producers are now trying to decide how long they should keep a cow.
“Three, four, five lactations,” he says. “These cows are paid to produce a lot of milk, however, they are still worth a lot of money as beef. And, you cannot afford to have any of them to die on the farm.”
At the Dairy Calf & Heifer Association Annual Meeting in Westminster, Colo., Dr. Geoff Smith, dairy technical services veterinarian with Zoetis, says that beef on dairy has been a blessing and a curse to dairy producers.
“It has been a blessing for many reasons, the biggest one being the extra income it has brought to dairies,” he says. “Many farms have fallen so in love with producing beef-on-dairy that they don’t have the number of replacement heifers needed. And they’re not able to make proper culling decisions because they don’t have the numbers of replacements in the pipeline.”
Although, according to Jim Salfer with University of Minnesota, producers do not seem to have an appetite for increasing the number of heifer calves that they are raising.
“A lot of it is because of the cash flow situation on farms and the extreme value of these crossbred calves,” he says. “Most of the farms that I work with have no appetite for even raising a few extra heifers.”
Salfer points out that highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) will be crucial to watch to see if that results in additional culling.
“One other potential fly in the ointment is if states start restricting movement because of the HPAI breakout,” he says. “It seems like mortality levels are low, so that may not be likely.”
Low milk prices force producers to calculate how to generate extra profit and many have found through beef-on-dairy and cull cows checks. The key for producers going forward will be maintaining the right number of lactating cows going through the parlor and ensuring the right number of replacement heifers can keep that pipeline full. This is an on-going conversation that will continue to unfold as long as the beef market stays hot.
Check Out These Beef-on-Dairy Stories:
- Researchers Zero in on Liver Abscesses for Beef-on-Dairy
- How a Barn Fire and Lost Processor Forced This Dairy to Make Big Changes
- Four Steps Veterinarians Can Take To Help Producers Transition To Beef-On-Dairy
- America’s Heifer Shortage is Preventing Expansion. Is the Big Money for Beef-on-Dairy a Factor?
