Dairy beef rivals the big beef breeds

Tasmanian dairy farmer Jane Sykes says dairy beef markets can't come soon enough.

Ms Sykes is certain Australian milk processors will one day follow Europe and demand all dairy calves are reared, something her Tasmanian farm couldn't manage.

Dairy beef could be the answer, as a project to create Meat Standards Australia (MSA) index for Holsteins and Jerseys begins to yield results.

The MSA is Australia's benchmark for meat quality and predicts the tenderness, juiciness, flavour and overall liking of each carcase across 39 different cuts of meat.

Dairy beef is much more common in Europe, and during a study trip there last year, Ms Sykes learnt one of the world's biggest dairy cooperatives, Arla, had announced a new policy that requires calves to be reared for the first eight weeks of life.

"That kind of opened my eyes," Ms Sykes said.

"Here on our own farm, we don't have the ability to deal with our extra stock and I do have a feeling something like that will come to Australia.

"When it does, it's something we have to be prepared for."

Right now, Ms Sykes said, there were few options, with Jersey bobby calves barely big enough to be sold over the scales.

There was no other local market for young calves.

The thought of changing breeds is inconceivable, although the family does have some Ayrshires.

After a career in dairy nutrition on the mainland, Ms Sykes has come home to Ringarooma to manage her parents' 640-cow Minstonette Jersey stud and commercial dairy farm, and is also the Jersey Australia promotions officer.

"I'm passionate about Jerseys and I am not breedist or anything like that - a good cow is a good cow - but I don't want to introduce crossbreds into our herd or use a beef bull," she said.

But Ms Sykes sees potential in purebred Jersey non-replacement calves.

"The eating quality of a Jersey beast is phenomenal," she said.

"And there is a distinction there that with the colour of the fat, so you know what you're getting.

"So there are market opportunities there because it's a product that is so distinguishable from anything else out there."

The Dairy Beef Project is owned by Charles Sturt University, Meat & Livestock Australia, Teys Australia, Northern Cooperative Meat Co, Dairy Australia and Manildra.

The project is led by Dr Michael Campbell of Charles Sturt University.

Its first trial involves 770 dairy cattle fed under three regimes alongside European and British breeds to measure their viability and meat quality outcomes.

"Dairy breeds behave much like a Euro-type beef animal," Dairy Beef Project leader Adjunct Professor Ian Lean said.

"If they go on a very slow growth path, it takes a long time for them to get to maturity and they tend to be very long and lanky.

"What we're trying to do is examine whether putting them on a higher rate of gain ends up with a better carcase quality."

A low input system, which aims to reflect widespread current practice, will leave the steers on pasture and aim to achieve growth of 0.7-0.9 kilograms of bodyweight gain a day.

A higher input model integrates enough supplementary feed to fuel 1.1-1.2kg/day growth.

The low and higher input models are designed to assess dairy veal, which the project defines as animals with a carcase weight of less than 150kg.

Prof Lean said data that had just come in from the first group of 275 calves finished in a feedlot had revealed breed differences.

"It looks like the Jerseys, despite being on a high growth path have been slow growing compared to the other breeds, but that may be okay because they're going to mature at a lower body weight," he said.

"As expected, the European cattle have gained probably the most weight but the performance of the Holsteins versus the British breeds appears to be quite similar for growth rates and the Holstein-Jersey crosses were just behind."

The trial's European group was dominated by Limousins and the British breeds by Angus. An interim report on this phase of the study is imminent.

"We've been really pleased with the quality, the look of the cattle coming out, they've certainly hit the targets for a kill that you would like," Prof Lean said.

A third, much more intensive, regime mirroring Spanish practices will see the steers reach 550kg liveweight or 300kg carcase weight by 12 months.

"There's been enough interest out of our other aspect of the study, which is the so-called Spanish trial where we're looking to get them up to a carcass weight of 290 to 300 kgs in a year that we're seeing a supply chain start around rapid growth of Holsteins," Prof Lean said.

"So we are seeing evidence that's already being adopted."

The diet of the calves in the Spanish trial is 90 per cent supplements and the researchers have kept them in former chicken sheds on wood shaving bedding, where they are well sheltered but have access to with large runs.

"The Spanish system feeds them a limited amount of milk and asked them to go on to the very, very high quality concentrate immediately," Prof Lean said.

"We're running that as a comparison to the more standard Australian approach of a high-quality muesli-type diet coupled with a higher milk intake."

Prof Lean said the trial had already shown the benefits of a dry, draft free environment and four litres of quality-tested colostrum in the first six hours of life.

The project has suffered some coronavirus-related delays but expects to have MSA gradings underway within 15 to 18 months from now, Prof Lean said.

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