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| I forgot about that sale today, had talked to Kendrick about his bulls two weeks ago. Looks like they avg's over 9 grand. As far as running out of dairy cows, I'm betting not. Back in the early 2000's dairy were pumping BST into cows and burning them up. Only time I saw in the west a shortage of milk cows. During that time it was taking 5 culls to purchase a springer in this area. We made out like bandits selling springers because we didn't use BST. BST took a next level of management, lots of dairies didn't have that.
The delvopment of better vaccinations for BVD, etc. raised more heifers for dairys than before 2000's. Just better overall management of cattle. Thus didn't have the need to breed everything for milking. Also sexed semen also came into play big time. Then dairies set up to feed steers have raised the bar and become more integrated into beef. They can crank out a very predictable product, on a time-line.
I would like to see real numbers of these dairy/beef calves on feed. You could pull some of those numbers from video sales, however, I'm guessing 50% are marketed direct. One outfit here in Idaho is going to their own packing plant. Since getting out of milking I've not followed milk trends. However I've heard some local plants are looking for milk right now, fighting over it. Wasn't that way 5 years ago. Not far fetched for dairy industry to start marketing a dairy burger, watch them go to war with Black Angus for burger! LOL | |
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Short dairy cows
