Beef-on-dairy
Part of Congress Lake Farms’ Operation Story & Photos by Amy Beth Graves The invitation was too good for Mike Rufener to pass up -- an all expenses paid trip for three days to Las Vegas to learn more about ABS Global’s beef-on-dairy initiative. The year was 2012 and Mike, a dairy farmer in northeastern Ohio, had already been dabbling in adding beef genetics into his dairy cows via artificial insemination to create calves that could be sold for more money than male Holsteins. That’s because the carcass quality of the dairy-beef animals typically grade much higher than that of the dairy steers. A big believer in sustainability, Mike was considering at the time expanding his beef-on-dairy herd to help the farm’s bottom line. After three days of what he described as productive meetings, he was convinced
14 | Ohio Cattleman | Late Fall Issue 2020
that beef-on-dairy was the way to go. “(ABS) showed us the money they had spent on making this program and building it up. I had already started doing this a bit and now it’s really taking off,” said Mike, who manages the 700-head dairy cows and 700 beef-dairy animals at the family farm, Congress Lake Farms in Portage County. The family farm dates back to 1884 in Suffield Township with three generations currently involved in it. The farm, which also raises corn, soybeans, wheat, triticale, alfalfa and hay, is spread across four counties and has almost two dozen employees. Mike’s father, Kenny, helps manage all aspects of the farm, his brother, Kenny Jr., manages the crops, employees and maintenance and his son, Cole, works full-time on the farm. Mike’s moth-
er, Linda, and his wife, Carol, are in charge of bookkeeping. “The Rufeners are quite progressive. They were way out ahead on beef-ondairy before everyone else was. Mike was ready to stick his toe in it and it’s really turned out wonderful for them. They are top-notch in this field,” said Zachary Berry, ABS Global’s district account manager for eastern Ohio. For the last few years, Mike has been participating in ABS’s Beef InFocus program, which offers top beef sires to dairies based on their research of fertility, calving ease, gestation length and stillbirth results. Beefon-dairy has been a focus of ABS for about 10 years since dairies stopped keeping as many of their heifers as replacements, opening up the market for more to be bred with beef bulls. At first dairy producers were leery of beef-on-dairy because as Mike says, they “are afraid to change what they’re doing.” But with many in the dairy industry struggling the last few years to be profitable, they’re looking for ways to boost their bottom line and have started looking into beef-on-dairy. That’s where companies like ABS and others come into play. They’re working at developing genetics that provide calving ease, fertility on the bull side and ultimately result in an animal that grows quickly, is feed efficient and financially worth more. “Our beef-on-dairy sales grow every quarter. There’s tremendous
