Canada exported about 100,000 Holsteins a year in the days before BSE changed the livestock landscape, but under the new order of business, dairy cattle will require proof of age just like beef animals.
All cattle registered with Holstein Canada automatically have age verification records with the national organization, as well as the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency, said registrar Glenn Cherry. However, a small number of producers do not register their animals.
“People need to get in the habit of age verifying their animals. That is for their own benefit,” Cherry said.
Large numbers of dairy heifers and cull cows were exported in the pre-BSE period, but farmers carried extra inventory for export revenue, said Jackie Jardine of the Canadian Livestock Genetics Council.
Up to 65,000 were exported to the United States, another 25,000-30,000 went to Mexico and a small number to other countries.
“Farmers no longer have those extra heifers because they haven’t made them for the last four years,” she said.
Rebuilding numbers could take at least two years before enough cattle have been born to regain lost markets.
