Melinda Kovacs: Beef-on-Dairy Crossbred Health and Growth | Ep. 47

In this episode of The Dairy Health Blackbelt Podcast, Melinda Kovacs, MSc graduate student from the University of Guelph, explains how beef-on-dairy crossbred calves compare to purebred Holsteins in health, growth, and carcass performance. Her retrospective study followed calves from birth to harvest, revealing lower disease incidence and higher weight gains in crossbreds. Listen now on all major platforms!

Click here to read the full research article!

“Perhaps there is a greater ability of these crossbred calves to recover from diseases compared to Holstein calves.”

Meet the guest: Melinda Kovacs is an MSc graduate in Animal Biosciences from the University of Guelph, where her research focused on health outcomes, growth performance, and carcass traits of beef-on-dairy crossbred calves. Her work was recently published in the Journal of Dairy Science. Learn more from Melinda Kovacs on The Dairy Health Blackbelt Podcast, available on all major platforms.

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What you will learn:

• (00:00) Highlight
• (00:57) Introduction
• (02:13) Dairy x beef crossbreeding
• (04:47) Study design and results
• (06:43) Health outcomes
• (08:27) Growth performance and body weight
• (09:45) Following calves to harvest
• (11:42) Closing thoughts

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