A visit to Grand Rapids, Michigan

Recently, I traveled to Grand Rapids, Michigan, for a conference organized for veterinarians who own or manage large dairies. For some readers who remember the Amway traveling salespeople, this conference was held in the hotel that Amway built. All the attendees and speakers were veterinarians from New York, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Idaho, Oregon, Colorado and California. Herd size varied from 1,000 to 45,000 cows.

Dr. Michael Overton has analyzed thousands of Dairy Herd Improvement records and has proven some key points he believes are necessary for profitability. When speaking at the conference, he said he believes the optimum voluntary waiting period for any breeding program should be 50-72 days. Delaying breeding causes longer days open. It also decreases the chance of pregnancy and increases the risk of creating more culls. The highest-producing cows have the best pregnancy rate by breeding before 72 days.

Another item of discussion was the keeping of more dairy heifers as a risk management tool. Overton believes that, with the increased value of black calves to $1,500-$2,000 for day-old calves, the temptation to use more beef semen is very strong. Last year, 7.9 million units of beef semen were sold to dairy farmers. Considering we currently have about 9.5 million dairy cows, that is a lot of beef straws. With the use of genomics, a dairy producer can improve genetics more quickly by keeping more high-genomic heifer calves. Then, when they calve in at two years, cull them or other animals in the herd after milking the new heifers for 150 days. This makes sense if facilities are available. Keep in mind that the accuracy of genomics is 70% compared to 20% for Net Merit Dollars.

On another day at this conference, we boarded a bus and found our way to a JBS Foods slaughter and processing facility. Security was very tight, with all visitors identified before leaving the bus. This plant employs 1,500 workers (15 different languages are spoken in the plant) and processes approximately 2,200 steers or cull cows daily, five days a week. The old saying about how everything is used except the bellows is still true. Cattle, to keep this plant supplied, come from Michigan, Ohio, New York, Tennessee, Indiana and Kentucky. All livestock trucks have a schedule to follow for unloading times. If they are early or late, they may not get in. The holding area has room for about 700 animals and will be empty at the end of the only shift each day that kills animals.

An impressive area of the plant was the boning section. We observed from a catwalk over an area with 600 people on about six lines, with each line boning out different portions of the carcasses. One line only did heads, another did limbs, another did front shoulders, etc.

Costco is their biggest customer, currently getting about 9% of their products. Beef is ground and may be packaged as quarter-pound patties, 1- and 2-pound packages, 20-pound packages, and large totes for another firm to package.

Some products are never frozen but are kept cold. Others are frozen, boxed, and stored via computers and robots in the distribution center. If you have ever seen a video of an Amazon distribution center, then you have a concept of the many conveyors moving boxes of meat from the boning center to the truck. This delivery system never stops and can get a box of meat from a shelf 40 feet above the floor or move to another aisle. If a customer ordered 100 boxes of New York strip steaks, this constantly-moving inventory control machine would have those boxes on a pallet in a freezer ready for shipment the next day.

Some products were being shipped overseas. One of those was feet. The foot is cut off above the dew claw and then throughly cleaned and sanitized with very hot water. The ones I saw that day were very white and looked tasty (except I know where they have been) and were destined for Asia, where they are a delicacy.

Each carcass is graded as the line moves along, using a camera that takes a picture of the loin eye. An inspector is there, but the machine does the work, and another person stamps the grade on the carcass.

We did learn about a term I have seen on checks from a slaughter plant. “No Roll” beef is an animal that has been on a high corn diet for 60-90 days and is usually a cull dairy cow, most often a Holstein, but occasionally a Jersey can fit the protocol. The fat has to be white, and there must be a certain amount of marbling present, even though the animal was older than normal.

Do you know what the most valuable part of a cull cow is? An unborn calf. Unborn calves are harvested separately, and the sterile blood is collected into 1-liter bags. Each calf close to term will produce one bag worth about $500. This sterile blood is used to make fetal bovine serum, which is used for medical research.

Our afternoon lunch that day was at a brewery owned by the Schaendorf Brewing Company. As we walked into the restaurant, there were fresh cuts of beef in a cooler for sale from his beef farm. Up to four carcasses a week are sold through the restaurant. The owner also has dairies with rotary parlors, a custom harvesting business, and grows oleic soybeans, which he processes for himself and other farmers. Wouldn’t it be interesting to find out how these large farms got to the level they are now? Who took the risks?