Dairy Beef Quality Assurance Part of Dairy’s Bottom Line
The Dairy Beef Quality Assurance program (DBQA) is a valuable part of a dairy’s bottom line, according to Alan Frederick, Pennsylvania dairy farmer and Secretary of the Pennsylvania Beef Council. Speaking in Wednesday’s broadcast, Frederick said the program made him more aware of when cattle should be marketed if they can’t be rehabilitated and returned to the herd. It also taught him how the placement of injection sites can ruin a piece of meat.
“That gristle is basically there forever,” he said, and costs dairymen money whenever a dairy cow goes through the sale barn because “buyers have a pretty good idea that, that cow may have injection sites in places that are going to ruin the meat and therefore they’re not going to pay as much for it.”
He encourages all dairy producers to participate in the DBQA and can’t understand why they don’t “jump in with both feet because, even if you don’t care about anything other than just putting money in your pocket, that’s reason enough.” He adds that it’s not hard and “it’s the right thing to do.”
He talked about the various videos that show cattle going through sale barns that are total emaciated and “We should not ever wait that long to send a cow to the sale barn. It doesn’t advertise well for us (farmers), it costs us money if a cow is in that bad a shape, she should have been removed from the herd a month before she got clear down to nothing but skin and bones or was so lame that she could hardly walk. They’re not making you any money trying to milk them during that period of time so why not get rid of them when they have some salvage value to them.” “The public seeing that kind of stuff go through the sale barns can’t advertise meat very well.”
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