As Dairy Semen Sales Drop, Beef-on-Dairy Continues to Rise
The U.S. bovine semen industry reports a decline of 5% in total unit sales, reaching 69 million total units reported for all categories combined. As reported by the National Association of Animal Breeders (NAAB), this represents a 3.4 million unit decrease from 2021.
"After successfully managing two years of disruptions to the supply chain and public health challenges, the impact of the global economic downturn has reached the genetics industry resulting in a decline in total dairy and beef units sold,” Jay Weiker, president of NAAB says.
Breaking this down further:
- Total dairy unit sales for domestic and export were nearly the same as in 2021 at 49.4 million units.
- Beef sales experienced a significant decline of 15% representing 3.3 million fewer units sold.
- Beef-on-dairy semen sales increased by around 718k units both in the U.S. and for export.
- Beef-on-beef sales saw a decline of 4 million units.
NAAB says that the cost of raising a heifer to the age of first calving has also increased significantly, so a calculated number of replacement heifers are produced to meet expected future needs and beef semen is used on the remainder of the herd.
Lyle Kruse, Vice President of U.S. Market Development for Select Sires, says these numbers are a combination of several factors that include:
- Producers are breeding more to dairy animals to beef
- Breeding fewer heifers
- Having less inventory of cattle (cows/heifers) on hand
- Using more sexed semen to target replacement needs, along with moderate but continued improvements in CR on sexed semen
- Improvements in reproductive efficiency in both cows and heifers
“With tight margins and escalating costs of production, most of the dairy owners I work with a continually pushing to increase how many beef-on-dairy calves they make – the income from these calves is definitely a motivator for extra cash flow,” Kruse shares.
Producer Perspective
Carlson Dairy located in Pennock, Minn., culling determinations have changed, especially as they have strategically dialed into their breeding program.
"We used to cull a lot more, but that has really changed,” one of the owners, Carl Carlson shares.
Before cows were culled for mastitis or low production and now cows are only leaving for low production. Carlson’s culling rate hovers between 31-32%.
“We want to keep older lactation cows in the herd longer because obviously we're getting more milk out of them.”
Understanding their ultimate goals, the Carlson’s began utilizing beef-on-dairy a couple of years ago on both heifers and mature cows.
“Right away we went with using beef, as well as some conventional semen,” Carlson shares. “And now we’re all strictly using either beef or sexed.”
The Carlson family milks 2,000 cows and basically raises all replacements on the home site, except 15% that are raised by a nearby family member. In addition, they farm 2,500 acres, of which they raise 1,000 acres of alfalfa and 1,500 acres of corn. All of which goes back to helping the dairy to feed cattle.
Before breeding to beef, Carlson was raising excess heifers that they then would later sell as bred heifers, but that changed when the market changed. Rising inflation costs swallowed up the costs of raising heifers and selling bred heifers later didn’t always guarantee a returned profit.
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