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Hosted by members of the University of Minnesota Extension Beef and Dairy Teams, The Moos Room discusses relevant topics to help beef and dairy producers be more successful. The information is evidence-based and presented as an informal conversation between the hosts and guests.
00;00;11;03 - 00;00;34;19
Brad
And welcome to The Moos Room. It's, busy spring travel season. I was just away in Florida for the week. A nice down there, mid 80s every day. I don't want to get anybody too jealous up here in the north, but hopefully spring will be coming very soon and it'll start warming up here as well.
00;00;34;19 - 00;01;04;09
Brad
And of the winter has been long and it's been cold. And now at our research center, everything's turning to mud because it's raining and, it's just well, it is spring in in Minnesota, I saw the new national performance metrics come out from the Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding in the US. So I kind of wanted to just look through those and kind of tell you a little bit about what's going on in the US dairy herd.
00;01;04;12 - 00;01;30;19
Brad
But first, review a few things. If you haven't caught some of the news, and then maybe look at what the beef and dairy markets are doing. So just recently in early March, March 2nd, Zoetis announced it was going to acquire Nio, Jun's animal genomic business. So that includes the gene SK laboratories and all the livestock animal genomics information.
00;01;30;19 - 00;01;55;25
Brad
So what that means I'm not sure. Basically the the lab work will now be under Zo at us, and it will be interesting to see how that works within kind of the second half of 2026 to kind of see what's going on. If you want to know more a little bit about that, there's a wonderful article on the Bovine online that kind of reviews some of that.
00;01;55;25 - 00;02;39;22
Brad
Let's talk about beef and dairy now, ma'am. These beef on dairy prices are just crazy. It's like, I wish I could generate more beef on dairy calves. I think if we'd have all seen these prices coming six months ago or nine months ago, out of bread, the whole herd to beef and it's just wild. So if I look at central Minnesota so Minnesota where we're located, Albany, Minnesota, kind of Stearns County where a lot of the dairy world is here in Minnesota at the Bull calf markets there I look at Holstein bull calves, the top of the market, $1,425 for a 112 pound Holstein bull calf.
00;02;39;24 - 00;03;04;09
Brad
That's unreal. You know, Holstein bull calves. This is really high for Holstein bull calves. A lot of them, at least the top of the sales range from 1200 to 1400. I'd say that's pretty good. When I started at Morris Little over ten years ago, bull calves were maybe $50. Maybe I could get 100 bucks out of them. But this market is just crazy.
00;03;04;09 - 00;03;36;17
Brad
I heard from a producer last week, purebred Jersey bull calf, $750 and we couldn't give those things away. So that's wonderful. What about beef on dairy crosses? That Albany top of the market, 85 pound calf, $1,800. Here's another 110 pound calf, $1,800. A lot of calves are top in the market. 17 $1,800, $1,800 for a little calf beef on dairy crosses.
00;03;36;20 - 00;04;13;00
Brad
I don't know. We've talked about can you make money on that? Oh, I'd love to see the economics of of beef on Dairy Crossing now with the high calf prices. If I go to southern Minnesota, look at the calf market there. Holstein calves 95 to 125 pounds, thousand dollars to $1,700. This is in in some broader Minnesota. And if you look at the beef and dairy crosses 75 pounds to 110 pounds, $1,200 to 2125 Holy smokes, that's crazy.
00;04;13;00 - 00;04;46;14
Brad
The top of the market beef on Dairy Cross Calf $2,100 at 110 pounds of age. That's unheard of. A lot of you know, you can look at a few of them. 85 pounds, $1,975, a couple others $1,800, but $2,100 for a beef on Dairy Cross calf that is unheard of. I think when we started in the beef on dairy market, it's maybe 304 hundred bucks that we could get out of there.
00;04;46;14 - 00;05;06;02
Brad
So while if I had a known calves were going at $2,100 out of just bred everything to beef bred at all the beef and then play the market and see what happens. That's unheard of. So the market's going to continue to get wild. We're going to see what happens. It'll be exciting to see where we go from there.
00;05;06;08 - 00;05;24;21
Brad
I'll update you certainly once I get our bull calf bids back about what's going to happen there and see what's see what we're going to get for our beef on dairy cross calves. We've got about 60 of them coming this spring, maybe a little less than what we normally have. I would have loved to have a lot more in the fall.
00;05;24;24 - 00;05;55;28
Brad
We'll definitely have more, but mayhem, that's just unreal. Unreal. So let's talk about national performance metrics. So these just came out from the US Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding. So that's who processes genetic evaluations in the US. And they usually release a performance metric. So the new data from 2025 is out basically cow averages herd averages. They don't have the reproductive performance up yet.
00;05;55;28 - 00;06;19;11
Brad
So I was a little bit disappointed there with that. But we'll kind of go through. It's interesting to see, you know, production statistics where the cows are in the US. And we'll kind of go through everybody's breeds and, and see what we can find. Basically, this data comes from herds that are enrolled in dry milk recording, in the US.
00;06;19;11 - 00;06;41;27
Brad
So in the US, maybe about 50% of the herds roughly or so are on DHEA. So the numbers might seem a little bit lower compared to around the world animals that are on milk recording. You know, we go to some countries in Europe, almost 100% of the animals are on, on milk recording. So in the US about 50%.
00;06;41;27 - 00;07;06;03
Brad
And so we have to take those numbers. So this is only D herd A numbers. So we'll we'll kind of look at those and see you can go on the web if you ever curious and go on Council on dairy cattle breeding website and look for the national performance metrics. It's interesting to see what that looks like. But let's sort of dive in to to some of this data.
00;07;06;03 - 00;07;42;12
Brad
If we look at it from across the United States, cows, milk recording 3.7 million cows in the United States on milk recording. So we could, you know, double that amount to a little over 7.5 million to 8 million dairy cows in the United States. So if you look at all the cows across the US that are on milk recording, there's 7806 herds that are on milk recording the average number of cows per herd is 329.
00;07;42;12 - 00;08;29;11
Brad
About 330 cows per herd. Average milk production 84 pounds of milk 4.34% fat 3.35% protein. Average somatic cell count 179,000. That's in the US. What about the top ten herds for number of cows in the US? Well, California's number one, Wisconsin number two, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Idaho, Michigan, Iowa, Ohio. Those ten states are making up a majority of the cows in the United States that are on milk recording.
00;08;29;13 - 00;08;54;17
Brad
Remember, these are the only these are cows on milk recording. It's kind of interesting to see where we are. Other states are in there. You know, South Dakota state next to us, about little less than 30,000 cows on milk recording there. Number 19, I think about North Dakota here to the north, 3500 cows. They got eight herds on milk recording in North Dakota.
00;08;54;17 - 00;09;22;09
Brad
So what States don't have any cows on die Alaska, Hawaii, Wyoming, Alabama, Rhode Island, Arkansas. They got a few herds on milk recording. So it's kind of interesting. So that's all the cows in the US. Well, if you think about it from a Holstein perspective. So what are the the Holstein averages? A little over 3 million cows in the US are hosting a little over 7000 herds.
00;09;22;11 - 00;09;59;06
Brad
Average herd side 292 milk production, 87 pounds of milk with a 4.26 fat 3.29 protein, 178 somatic cell count. So a pretty good, Holstein herd here in the US. If I look at the top eight states again California, Wisconsin, New York, Texas, it's 42 Holstein herds in Texas, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, Idaho. It's a lot of Holstein herds in those similar states that we see again.
00;09;59;08 - 00;10;40;24
Brad
So about 3 million cows are Holstein. Well, what about the second most popular breed in the US Jersey? So about 410,000 cows in the US on milk recording 2500 Jersey herds. And they're a little bit less Holstein average was about 292 cows per herd. Jersey's less 131 cows per herd. They're averaging about 63 pounds of milk, average fat percent in the jerseys in the US, 5.02 average protein 3.7 882.
00;10;40;24 - 00;11;09;23
Brad
Somatic cell count. So somatic cell count for the jerseys is similar to that to the Holstein, except we're running much higher fat and higher protein percentages. Again, the top state with jerseys in the US again is California, Texas, Wisconsin. Oregon's got 38 jersey herds that make up of that. Iowa, 88 Jersey herds, Minnesota 121 herds that have Jersey.
00;11;09;23 - 00;11;30;00
Brad
So that's, quite a few more than than what it was when I was growing up. So a lot more jerseys here in Minnesota, New York and Pennsylvania kind of follow that out. So a few different states in there, but they're kind of sprinkled all over the US. We see Oregon's got quite a few more jerseys.
00;11;30;02 - 00;12;02;00
Brad
Interesting to note. Oregon and Wisconsin Fats are running five three fats and A38 protein on about 63 pounds of milk. So getting a lot more fat out of the jerseys here in the Midwest than maybe we are in other parts of the country. So crossbred. So crossbred probably makes up the third largest breed composition in the US. Crossbred herds about 260,000 cows.
00;12;02;02 - 00;12;36;22
Brad
So remember is about 400,000 cows Holsteins, over 3 million cows cross breads about 260,000. So it's quite a few cross breeds. There's about 3000 herds in the US, that are crossbred, averaging about 54 cows per herd. They're running about 74 pounds of milk for six fat, 3.5 protein with 191,000 somatic cell count. So pretty good. Where are the most of the crossbred herds in the US?
00;12;36;22 - 00;13;20;16
Brad
Texas. Texas has large crossbred herds. Average herd size of the crossbred herds in the. In Texas, 1601 cows. So it's a lot a lot of cows, some big herds down there that got crossbred Wisconsin number two for number of cross spreads beaten out California, about 40,000 cross breads in Wisconsin averaging about 67 cows per herd. And we got California Idaho, Minnesota, my home state here at about 10,000 crossbred cows, about 300 herds that got cross spreads, only averaging about 18 cows per, per herd here in in Minnesota, Iowa's got about 47.
00;13;20;16 - 00;14;10;14
Brad
So lots of crossbred cows, mostly here in the Midwest. Michigan, Iowa, some in Pennsylvania, Idaho. So cross breeds make up, pretty large portion of cows here in the United States. Now. Well, what about some of the the other breeds kind of go through them briefly and maybe where some of the top herds are. If you look at Brown Swiss, 16,969 cows in the US, so about 17,000 brown Swiss sun, 1265 herds, they average about 68 pounds of milk, four three fat, three five protein, 180 somatic cell count Wisconsin has the most brown Swiss cows by quite a big margin 3600 brown Swiss cows.
00;14;10;14 - 00;14;43;09
Brad
New York, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Minnesota. Minnesota's got 1300 brown Swiss cows. Iowa about 1600 brown Swiss cows. So most of the brown Swiss again are centered here in the Midwest of Vermont is in the top ten for Brown Swiss. They got 870 brown Swiss cows. They're Illinois, Indiana, California, Missouri. So kind of more of the show states have probably a little bit higher brown Swiss in the US or Guernsey.
00;14;43;09 - 00;15;14;07
Brad
What about Guernsey? What what do we see on the Guernsey breed? 4774 cows in the US, less than 5000 guernseys on test. Where are most of those located? Wisconsin in the US, the herd average about 11 cows per herd and guernseys. They're average about 53 pounds of milk. They're averaging about A46 for fat and a three for three protein somatic cell count about 200,000.
00;15;14;07 - 00;15;44;00
Brad
So a little bit higher than some of the other breeds. But Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New York. Iowa's got 475. Guernsey Minnesota 288. Guernsey's quite a few. But some of the other states Maryland has moved up way on the East Coast. 172 Guernsey is probably related more to the show business than any Missouri 111 a few, herds there, but it dives off really quickly.
00;15;44;00 - 00;16;18;24
Brad
There's 20 states that don't have any guernseys, and quite a few that have less than five cows or a handful of five cows. So it is kind of different with with the Guernsey site, about 4800 cows in the US. So what about Ayrshire? Well, we see a few more cows than the Guernsey, about 6600 cows. So if you think about it, some of these breeds we could probably fit all of those breeds, all of the cows of those breeds in one herd in the US, you know, 6600 cows.
00;16;18;24 - 00;16;49;18
Brad
I've been on quite a few dairies that are well over 5 to 6000 cows. And so you can have a whole herd ayrshire's the whole national herd of Ayrshire's or Guernsey in some of these bigger dairies, Ayrshire, see about eight cows per herd. We're averaging 62 pounds milk, 4.18 fat, 3.27 protein. So less fat and protein 188,000 somatic cell count where most of the Ayrshire cows located Wisconsin.
00;16;49;21 - 00;17;25;14
Brad
About 1100 Ayrshire cows in the US are located in. In Wisconsin. Last but not least, Milking Shorthorn seven 7165 cows in the US and 394 herds. They're averaging about 76 pounds of milk. Wow. I didn't expect the Milking Shorthorn to be that quite productive, but a nice production. Most of it's coming from Wisconsin. They get a lot of milk out of their milking Shorthorn cows running about a 3991322 protein 169,000 somatic cells.
00;17;25;14 - 00;17;50;23
Brad
So probably the lowest somatic cell count that we've seen of any of the breeds. But just lower fat, lower protein out of the 7100 cows milking Shorthorn in the United States, 5200 of them are in Wisconsin. So, and 80% of the Milking Shorthorn cows in the US are in Wisconsin. Then it goes down quite a bit in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Maryland, Iowa.
00;17;50;24 - 00;18;17;10
Brad
New Hampshire's got 162, New York, Illinois, Ohio. So again, most of the Northeast and Midwest, have a lot of these herds, but kind of interesting statistics if you never really think about the Milking Shorthorn breed. So kind of, recapping there, the lowest number of cows in the US, Guernsey by far little less than 4800 Milking Shorthorn, actually, Ayrshire is next.
00;18;17;10 - 00;18;54;02
Brad
6600 milking Shorthorn. Seven 7218 17,000 Brown Swiss. So Brown Swiss is number four breed here in in the US crossbred 260,000 cows. Jersey 410,000 cows and 3 million Holstein. So kind of some interesting statistics that have just come out and production averages across across the US. You know, the average herd size here by. But think about review some of these average herd sizes, the average herd size.
00;18;54;02 - 00;19;24;05
Brad
And in the US across all the cows 333 cows on test where the highest average number of cows per herd new Mexico, New Mexico 5000 cows per herd. They have less than five dairy herds. Texas 4300 Arizona 1900 cows per herd. So some of the smaller states, they got big herds, but just a few, a few herds, only ten herds in Arizona, less than five in New Mexico.
00;19;24;07 - 00;19;55;18
Brad
Colorado's got some pretty big herds, 17 herds averaging 1700 cows. Florida, ten herds. In Florida, they average 1700 cows. So quite a few, cows per herd there in Florida. Nevada has less than five herds. They average actually looks like one herd in Nevada averages 1300 cows. South Dakota well over a thousand cows per herd. Washington less than about a thousand.
00;19;55;20 - 00;20;24;20
Brad
Oregon 622. Nebraska 523. And North Dakota eight. Herds average and little less than 500 cows. So a lot of the the the herds that have a lot of cows per herd, they tend to be more in the southwest, you know, Texas, Idaho well, not Idaho in the southwest, but Arizona and Nevada, new Mexico State, with the lowest number of cows per herd, Alabama, 34 cows per herd.
00;20;24;20 - 00;20;54;27
Brad
They got about 110 110 cows on dry test in in Alabama. So it looks like everybody's, you know, a lot of states got some dairy herds, which is good. Still a dairy all over the US, but obviously it's concentrating in, in certain parts southwest, Midwest, in the northeast. And so with that, I hopefully you learn a little bit about the statistics national performance metrics here on on dairy in the US.
00;20;54;29 - 00;21;20;05
Brad
Hopefully those numbers will be coming out for reproduction soon and we can kind of review, what some of the reproduction statistics, what we see. I'm really curious about where it's going to go. I have my feelings on on reproduction. I'm not sure that reproduction is necessarily improved a lot from a phenotypic standpoint or other other ways, but I may be proven wrong, but it'll be interesting to see what those come out and hopefully those will come out within the next month.
00;21;20;08 - 00;21;41;28
Brad
So with that, if you have any comments, questions, scathing rebuttals, feel free to contact me at the newsroom. That's t m o s r o m at edu or find us on the web at University of Minnesota Livestock Extension or U of M Rock dairy. And with that, hope you have a great week. Bye.