What are the disadvantages of the Holstein cattle?

Answer 1

Belgian blue cattle have too fine of bone to be able to support the amount of weight that their muscularity (being double-muscling) that they possess, however this is not much trouble if the amount of muscle they have is not in the extremes like what is common for much of European Belgian Blue cattle.

Other disadvantages include calving difficulties due to the double muscling in cows which decrease the vaginal diameter during labour; extreme muscling may inhibit bulls to naturally breed cows (those without the extreme muscling will often not have this issue); cows may have poor milking ability, and often cannot thrive on pasture alone without some level of supplementation (however there may be some disagreement here from North American BB breeders).

The meat of Belgian Blue cattle is far leaner than any other breed except Piedmontese (which is also a double-muscled breed), so even though health benefits from BB beef is of great value, it is not valued so much in the conventional meat packer industry. Much of the meat from these cattle can only be sold through niche marketing.

Answer 2

Belgian Blues can go for as low as $0.20/lb to as high as $50, 000 or more.