Breeding beef-on-dairy cattle for feed efficiency could save New Zealand $51 million a year in feed. Emma Owen, a Kellogg Rural Leadership Programme graduate, says her research titled ‘More Beef, Less Resources’ looked into breeds for a trait some animals already carry.

“It is about creating calves that eat less than the average population, but grow the same,” she says.

“They are more efficient at extracting energy from the food that they’re eating.”

The saving would come from cutting the average daily intake of every beef-on-dairy animal in the country by one kilogram a day. She says that surplus would keep 87,500 more bobby calves off the truck at four days.

Residual feed intake is used widely in overseas feedlots but is not well researched in New Zealand’s pasture-based systems. The more feed-efficient animals also produce less methane.

Read Emma’s full report here.

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