Surplus dairy calf management shifting to beef genetics

One such practice is the management of surplus bobby calves.

The existing standard often includes early-life euthanasia of low-value calves, typically males, or non-replacement dairy calves that will not become future milking females..

HW Greenham & Sons dairy beef and animal welfare manager Dr Sarah Bolton is passionate about the topic and with a background in veterinary science she is behind part of the research happening in Australia.

"In the past we've managed these animals according to what makes most economic sense, but more and more we're coming up against the challenge of how to ensure they're managed in a way that is economically viable but also meets public approval," Dr Bolton said.

Researching the social science of public opinion around processing surplus dairy calves, Dr Bolton said there was an overwhelmingly negative attitude to calves being killed in their first few days of life.

She said there's no "magic line in the sand" regarding public opinion on bobby calves and generally, most Australian dairy farmers recognised a need to move away from early-life euthanasia of surplus calves.

"A lot of them see huge advantages in terms of being able to recruit employees on farm because they don't have to be involved with those practices," she said.

"They see it as important for their own enjoyment and their own ethical lenses on farm as well, but the flip side is that whilst most dairy farmers would say yes, we'd love to have nothing to do with early-life killing of surplus calves, they can't do that at the expense of their business."

"So, it comes back to that critical challenge of being able to balance social acceptability and economic viability."

One option for dairy farmers is changing their choice of genetics, while ensuring they maintain a return.

"Between sex semen and beef-on-dairy breeding strategies, the company that I'm working for now Greenham has recently started up a dairy beef program where we actually set these calves up to be able to access our premium beef brands as well," Dr Bolton said.

Larpent dairy farmers and husband and wife team Mark Billing and Sam Simpson have taken to intentionally breeding some of their dairy cows with Angus beef genetics, giving them a better return on non-replacement calves.

"At the moment we're rearing everything, all our bull calves we keep as well," Mr Billing said.

They use Angus beef genetics for their crossbreds, inseminating lower-producing cows in their herd and rearing those calves in the same way as replacement heifers.

"We use a sort of a higher-quality Angus semen over those cows, and they've been really saleable to this point," Mr Billing said.

"The growth rates being beef are pretty astronomical, and then we get them on the pasture for two or three weeks and then what we have been doing is selling them on AuctionsPlus.

"We've been able to assess them on farm and we usually sell them in batches of about 30 and that's worked to this point really well."

Ms Simpson said they had not had a decrease in milk production per cow since introducing beef genetics.

She said they were now getting better production and their cows were lasting longer in their system.

"We could see the writing on the wall as far as the surplus calf market, as well and where that was potentially heading as far as social pressure from people that weren't comfortable with early life slaughter of animals," Ms Simpson said.

"So we decided we would jump on the bandwagon and really get on the front foot as far as doing something more proactive and more value added with our surplus calves.

"That would be not just the Angus or the crossies that we want from our low genetic cows, but also our bull calves as well, because we do obviously use conventional semen as well."

The pair did, however, recognise there are a lot of challenges and not every farm had capacity to expand and meet changing expectations.

They also invested in additional infrastructure and staff to assist during calving season.