Unable to return a surplus of female calves, dairies are assertively seeking to breed and sell surplus calves for meat production. However, many strongly antagonistic traits associated with calving performance and carcass merit can be detrimental to the cows’ ability to calve and re-establish pregnancy early postcalving without any compromise in milk production.
Researchers sought to derive a dairy–beef index (DBI) framework to rank beef bulls for use on dairy females. The aim was to strike a balance between the efficiency of valuable meat growth in the calf and the subsequent performance of the dam.
Source: Journal of Dairy Science, September 5, 2019. (abstract only) Link. Traits considered for inclusion in this DBI were:
- direct calving difficulty
- direct gestation length
- calf mortality
- feed intake
- carcass merit reflected by carcass weight, conformation, and fat and the ability to achieve minimum standards for each
- docility
- whether the calf was polled.