The University of Saskatchewan has dropped a study of all-dairy compared with beef-sired dairy calves after Alberta dairy farmers declined to participate.
They want to continue to use only white ear tags on their calves and not yellow tags that identify the beef-sired calves.
There is evidence that the beef-sired calves perform better at making beef and so they attract higher prices at auction.
The Saskatchewan research team wanted to find how much better they perform, but needed to identify the calves sired by beef semen.
Lactanet, a national dairy-industry performance-tracking service found there is a price difference between white- and yellow-tagged animals, but it did not delve deeper to discover if that holds true for cross-bred calves.
Last year, DairyTrace changed its ear tag policies.
Producers used to have an exception so they could put yellow button tags on beef-sired dairy calves instead of white DairyTrace tags.
As of Sept. 1, 2023, however, all calves born on dairy farms must have a DairyTrace tag, including those with beef sires.
The same policy changes ended dairy producers’ ability to put a yellow button on cull cows.
