Dairy bred to Beefy question...Milk/Meat

[boilerjoe_96]

Question about having a dairy cow and breeding it to a beefy(Angus)

I was wondering could I get a holstein or jersey... breed it to an angus...get a decent beef cow for meat and get milk from the cow(obviously you get mikl with a calf).

I do not like holstein meat(grandparents had dairy farm growing up).

I do like angus meat and have access to an angus bull(Father inlaw)

Original plan was a beef cow and just eat offspring. But could I get a dual purpose out of the deal. Milk from the dairy cow and decent meat from a angus cross offspring?

[gone-a-milkin]

A lot of people do this. It is not uncommon for even dairy farms to breed their young first-time heifers to an Angus, for a lower birthweight calf.

Sounds logical to me. What if the calf is a heifer?

[boilerjoe_96]

Eat her? Or should I sell her and then get a steer... I am not looking at growing a herd... that would be my goats....

[farmer_nurse]

Try Jersey and Angus...good milk (richer than Holstein) and smaller build on both sides. Jersey's are a smaller breed to start with and a bit easier to handle. We butcher our holstein steers all the time and can't tell the difference between that and beef. Did your grandparents feed corn to their cows. Back in the day that was not the usual custom but now days that is the norm. Corn is what makes or breaks the flavor (my opinion)

[bricned]

I' am breeding jersey to angus it works great.

[Cat]

There's a good thread about this on the Keeping a Family Cow forum. I've got a 4 mo. old Angus/Jersey heifer that I will be using for just this purpose.

[boilerjoe_96]

Originally Posted by farmer_nurse

We butcher our holstein steers all the time and can't tell the difference between that and beef. Did your grandparents feed corn to their cows. Back in the day that was not the usual custom but now days that is the norm. Corn is what makes or breaks the flavor (my opinion)

Yeah, it had quite a bit of some ground corn/molasses/etc mixture... The same stuff they fed to the dairy cows. I remember the best cows had a necklace so they could eat extra at an auto feeder.. This all was 25 years ago, I was 10 so not sure what all they put in the feed mixture but was corn based.

My cousin who grew up on it(holstein steer) and doesn't like regular beef from grocery, she likes the holstein...not me... Will the offspring of a Jersey or holstein, bred to a angus taste like holstein or angus? Or a mixture?

So eat the heifer if born?(it's what i was planning)

[KSALguy]

eat her or sell her, eather way you come out ahead on the deal, we had a couple HUGE old cows that were holstine/Angus, they produced the BEST calf crop, nice big meaty calvs off all that milk, if they had ben gentled before we got them i would have gladly milked them their bags were HUGE,

[harplade]

do you eat ground meat, etc from the grocery-I've been told that most of that is dairy-probably Holstein? Just curious-I've never been able to tell much different in the tastes of meat-maybe that's b/c I'm from South La. and we drown/stretch everything with lots of sauces-yum!!

[backachersfarm]

Personally I think it has more to do with what you feed them. We have a JerseyX that we milk. She does great. We get more milk then we know what to so with. She is bred to an Angus. I'm not sure what we will do with it if it is a heifer. The jersey will be more diluted at this point, but they don't always get a 50/50 showing of traits from the parents. The calf could end up looking more jersey.

[farmmaid]

We just butchered our first Jersey steer, the meet is wonderful. He was 11 months as I could not find a spring Jersey bull calf last year. Hubby cut and chopped up corn that was left in the field for @6 weeks and fed him long stem hay. Just enough fat to have it taste great.

The next one will be fall 2009 and he will be 1 1/2 years. Jersey bull calfs here cost the farmer to have them shipped to the auction. $5. at 3 days is the going rate to buy privately. I pay our wonderful neighbor $25 for a 2-3 week old bull Jersey calf and 2 gallons of milk to mix with my goat milk. The farmer is sooooooooo good to me!

Hopefully next spring I am going to buy his daughter's 4-H Jersey cow. She is not producing enough for the dairy but will be a wonderful nurse cow and soooo tame. They want the last calf from her if it is a heifer. She will be walked up the road @ 1/2 mile to us! We are going to breed her Jersey the first year and hope for a heifer then plan on breeding her to Angus.

[boilerjoe_96]

Originally Posted by backachersfarm

Personally I think it has more to do with what you feed them. We have a JerseyX that we milk. She does great. We get more milk then we know what to so with. She is bred to an Angus. I'm not sure what we will do with it if it is a heifer. The jersey will be more diluted at this point, but they don't always get a 50/50 showing of traits from the parents. The calf could end up looking more jersey.

I agree totally on feed choice... this was a professional dairy with 75 or 80 cows. The steer I ate got the best food... there was a difference in taste though...

Harplade: Dairy cows go to taco bell/mcdonalds/wendy's and school lunches for sure... most hamburger in groceries I believe is beef and mostly ground up other cuts that didn't sell in a few days. But I could be wrong..

Some like dairy meat just not me... give me an angus anyday