New findings are challenging the notion that Jersey genetics are less profitable when it comes to dairy beef says Waikato farmer and member of Jersey Advantage Ben Watson.

Presenting at the recent Jersey NZ conference in Invercargill, Watson highlighted how Jersey blood in dairy beef has recently been proven to hold some advantages when crossed with quality beef genetics. 

Dairy Beef trials carried out by the Rissington Cattle Company showed dairy beef steers and heifers from 50% Jersey dams when crossed with their top beef genetics specifically selected for dairy were competitive on a feed to gain basis when compared to industry average pure beef animals.

“Rissington are market leaders in beef genetics backed up by real data and genomic testing, not just in New Zealand but internationally. If they are telling me Jersey blood mixed with their beef is an advantage then that’s a big thing, and not what we have historically been led to believe as farmers or calf rearers supplying the beef market,” says Watson.

“Jersey cows are more efficient converters of pasture to milk so it makes sense they would help a beef cross animal to be a more efficient converter of pasture to beef.”

 Rissington dairy beef trials
The animals in the first round of Rissington trials were out of 50% Jersey dams and sired by Rissington Cattle Company Profit Maker bulls.

“Using selected beef sires, we have pulled the average of these trial dairy beef steers and heifers out of 50% Jersey dams to about 1 kg dry matter per kg live weight behind our highly selected pure beef population average,” says Jeremy Absolom, co-owner of the Rissington Cattle Company.

On a feed efficiency or “feed to gain” basis, Rissington’s beef population after over a decade of selection ranges from a feed requirement of just under 4 kg of dry matter per kg live weight gain to just over 10 kg dry matter per kg live weight gain.

“With results so far, we believe with the right beef sire selection that 50% or more Jersey dams are not a negative and potentially better than higher percentage Friesian if your objective is profitable ‘one winter’ prime or manufacturing beef production,” says Absolom.

“We saw no issues with meat and fat colour, or pH, and marbling looked promising, especially in young cattle 16-18 months.  We were testing at the lighter end of the carcass weight range to see where a ribeye, tenderloin and striploin reached minimum saleable weight and shape.”

Rissington Cattle Company’s selected beef population average is significantly above the national beef population average on a performance and efficiency basis, therefore, to get the Jersey cross animals feed efficiency so close to the selected beef population average is incredibly promising.

“Feed to gain is critical in making this system competitive for land use and less efficient beef sires will not deliver this, meaning someone in the supply chain needs to lose money for others to profit,” says Absolom.

Rissington will continue with trials on higher Jersey percentage dairy beef in future to test these efficiencies and further prove the feed conversion advantages offered by the addition of Jersey blood to dairy beef programs.

About the trial
Trials cohorts were fed in a state of the art facility on farm in northern Hawkes Bay where feed intake rations are weighed and allocated via EID reading technology as each animal eats its ration, as many times per day as the individual animal desires. 

Live weights are taken several times each day on an automatic scale every time an animal drinks using a front foot scale running an algorithm.  Although artificial in a pastoral farming sense the trials are very accurate in predicting performance and feed efficiency on pasture with a correlation factor of between 0.7-0.8 which is statistically significant. 

Also backing the R&D and data collection pedigree for Rissington Cattle Company is how well their beef sires in multiple breeds have performed in the Beef & Lamb Progeny Test programs.  Beef & Lamb PT programs have now been running for 8 years with 4 of the top 10 performing sires across all commercially used beef breeds, being Angus and Simmental bulls bred by Rissington.