Some questions around beef and dairy cows

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Wonderaboutcows

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Joined
Jul 22, 2017
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Hello Everyone, I am doing some research around beef and dairy cow and would appreciate some help on understanding the following questions:

1. During culling herd, are dairy cows being sent to feedlot to gain more weight before sent to slaughterhouse? I know beef cows are being sent to feedlot before sent to slaughterhouse.

2. Overall, what is the population proportion between cows/heifers/steers/bulls in cow-calf operations?

3. At what age are beef cows or steers being sent to beef packer's place? At what age are dairy cows (usually after a few calving cycles) being sent to beef packer's place?

4. What are the common reasons for sending cows to slaughterhouse? Is it mainly due to the feed availability for the winter?

5. Why would some pregnant cows end up in slaughterhouse? I understand booth dairy and beef cattle ranchers would prefer cows to calve than sending them away and I also heard sending pregnant cows to slaughterhouse would be punished by beef packers as they are paying by weight. Therefore there should be no incentive for ranchers to send cows to slaughterhouse at all. And I guess today's pregnancy testing is pretty accurate (95%). So there shouldn't be pregnant cows at the beef packer's plants unless it's a mistake. The reality is there might be a few hundreds of thousand pregnant cows found in slaughterhouse in the US every year.

I am not an animal rights person, nor take a stand on whichever sides etc. Just doing a research project and want to understand more about this industry. Any knowledge sharing is highly appreciated.

 

RandS

Active member
Joined
Feb 28, 2016
Messages
31
With the focus beginning to switch to clean animals, is there any place for bulls like Irish Whiskey?
 
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