As cattle producers explore avenues for boosting productivity, the spotlight often shines on genetics. For crossbred beef-on-dairy calves, maximizing genetic potential goes beyond selecting the right genes – it is also about creating the right environment to allow those genes to fully express.

With the opportunity to capitalize on record-low native beef herd numbers and the growing demand for high-quality beef, dairy-beef crossbred cattle producers can benefit from taking a second look at their early life calf nutrition program.

Over the last few years, producing dairy-beef crossbred calves has not only been talked about more, but it has also become a common production practice for dairy producers across the country.