More dairy farmers are starting to use sexed beef semen to crossbreed with their herds to produce a calf with added value.
And that’s exactly the animal Danish beef farmer Kristian Sorensen wants to purchase for his Tranbjerg Ostergaard farm located near the town of Arre in Jutland, western Denmark.
Each year Kristian produces around 4,000 calves for veal, which are then slaughtered at the local Danish Crown abattoir in Holsted. The calves are all bought from 25 local dairy farmers which ensure Kristian has a continuity of supply for his business.
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Plus, Kristian’s business is a good outlet for the dairy farms to sell their crossbred calves for more than the traditional dairy-bred bull calves.
Seven employees work on the farm that extends to 600 hectares on which he grows cereals, rapeseed, maize and grass.
“Back in 2010 I bought half this farm from my father and then nine years later I bought the other half,” Kristian says. “We began producing 1,000 calves for Danish Crown but since then have expanded the business by building new barns and now rear 4,000 calves for veal production each year.”
This particular Danish Crown veal production program is called Danish Calf and operates with a specific set of guidelines the 160 farmers that supply the calves must follow. They must be born and reared in Denmark to the highest welfare standards before slaughtering at local abattoirs, which are on average less than 2.5 hours travel from the farms.
Production protocols
The calves must be fed healthy and natural feed such as colostrum, fresh straw feed or roughage without the use of antibiotic growth promoters.
Other standards include correct slaughter weights, body shape and fat coverage measures as guided under the program.
“We buy the calves at about three weeks old,” Kristian says. “I have a constant supply from 25 local dairy farmers from whom I buy all my calves. In fact, right now we have 2,700 calves on the farm and I just bought in another 175 calves.”
Supply continues throughout the year. The goal is to rear the calves until they are nine months old and have reached the target slaughter weights as set out by the Danish Calf program.
Calves are fed milk for the first two months and are then switched to dry feed and roughage until they are ready for slaughter.
“In Denmark, we have a national calf price that is set to all farmers,” Kristian says. “As an example, for a Holstein calf crossbred with a beef sire weighing about 60kgs I would pay 100 euros (C$135) for that animal across the board. However, I currently pay a bonus for the best male calves, on top of the basic price. This gives the farmer a clear economic incentive to use more beef cattle.”
All the calves are vaccinated when they arrive on the farm. Kristian says the crossbred calves have better feed efficiency than the purebred dairy bull calves.
“Two years ago around 20 per cent of the calves I was buying were crossbreeds, but that has now increased to around 60 per cent, and will rise even further over the next few years. We generally slaughter the calves at nine months of age when they reach about 205 kilograms slaughter weight. Generally, we receive around five euros per kilogram (D$3.06 per pound) deadweight for the calves when slaughtered.
“Having more crossbreeds and fewer purebred dairy cattle benefits my bottom line and the climate,” he says.
Until the calves are three months old, they receive one kilogram of bought-in dry feed per day, which rises to 1.2-1.3kgs when they are five months old, levelling out to about 1kg up until nine months old and slaughter. All the calves receive around two kgs of fresh straw per head per day as well.
Best beef combinations
Since he has participated in feeding trials, Kristian is well aware of which beef breed combinations perform best. Measured quantities of feed were fed to a specified batch of calves, using feed troughs equipped with feed intake and behaviour-monitoring technology. The feed intakes were then compared to the daily liveweight gain of the calves, and results calculated.
Kristian prefers to buy in Belgian Blue, Charolais or Angus beef breeds crossbred with the dairy breeds, as they tend to thrive better in his system.
While most of the calves for the veal production program are males, he also runs a heifer program, keeping them longer to produce red meat.
These heifers fall under Danish Crown’s new Premium Heifer concept, which dictates the cattle must be fed with a high proportion of roughage and must be slaughtered at 18 to 20 months of age. He hopes to deliver around 600 heifers per year to this special program.
While four people work in the calf system, another three split their time between the heifer program and fieldwork and farm and machinery maintenance.
With so many calves on his farm, there are certain to be some casualties but using good welfare practices, and fresh food these are kept to a minimum.
“We have a mortality rate of around three to four per cent each year,” Kristian says. “All the calves are well looked after on our farm and we try to keep losses as low as possible.”
