Mating dairy cows to beef sires is only becoming more and more commonplace in the dairy industry. With tight margins, dairy producers need to add more value to low-end calves destined to enter the meat market. The beef industry is responding to this new market and the opportunities it represents. Angus Genetics Inc. (AGI) sets one example with their new indexes specifically for Angus sire selection for use on dairy cows.

Over the last three- to four-decade period, the beef industry has made great use of genetic selection tools to improve economically important traits. Much of that improvement is due to the implementation and use of expected progeny differences (EPDs).

It may be termed a changing of the guard at Quality Holsteins, but long-time herdsman Don Schwartz describes it “as a transition much more than an overthrow.”

Paul Ekstein, who began a Holstein herd as an offshoot of his forage seed business, is turning over leadership of Quality Farms to his son, Ari, and the most noticeable difference is the way genetics are marketed.