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A
Plan to Control Costs and Increase Dairy Income
(Page 1,
Page 2)
Do We Really Need a Dry Period for Cows?
Update
on Hill Top Dairy
A PLAN TO CONTROL COSTS AND INCREASE DAIRY INCOME
Page 2
Reducing feed costs. There are ways to trim feed costs. Dr. Howard and other nutrition consultants have listed ten ways to reduce feed costs. They are as follows:
| 1) | Reduce phosphorus in the diet of milking cow. Phosphorus is one of the most expensive nutrients. Reduce phosphorus to at least 0.4 percent of total dry matter. This could easily save $10 per cow per year. |
| 2) | Consider using by-products. Every country has choices regarding using any available feed by-products. In the USA, we have distillers grain, corn gluten, beet pulp, whey, and wheat middling. Prices of these products often allow dairymen to save money. |
| 3) | Consider contracting feed for 6 to 12 months ahead. This will allow dairymen to manage risk. Cottonseed is often cheaper in February and early March. |
| 4) | Evaluate your feed inventory. It is easier to shop for a good deal if you know ahead of time exactly what you will need to purchase. |
| 5) | Carefully evaluate feed additives. Every 10 cents of added daily feed costs adds $300 per month for a 100 cow herd. Unless the added 10 cents adds a pound of milk or other benefits, it is not contributing to profit. Hill Top Dairy has reduced feed additives. We see a better response to dry matter intake and milk production when we purchase high quality hay verses feed additives. |
| 6) | Review culling guidelines. When the price of milk falls from $15 to $10, a cow has to produce several more pounds of milk each day just to pay for her feed costs. This is why we see more cows going to slaughter when milk prices are low. Cows that are producing less than 40 to 50 pounds per day should be on the potential cull list. |
| 7) | Reduce feed ingredient losses during storage and handling. This can often cut feed costs by 5 to 10%. The feed preparation area should be kept clean. Feed often falls off the bucket of the loader or spills out of the feed wagon during mixing. Steel storage bins prevent feed loss caused by wind and consumption of feed by birds. |
| 8) | Carefully evaluate TMR feed that is not eaten each day. Careful feeding management may help reduce feed costs by reducing leftover feed. |
| 9) | Build a ration based on feed analyses. Feeding the least-cost or cheapest diet does not guarantee maximum returns above costs. |
| 10) | Consider feeding left-over or refused feed back to cows that are in late lactation.. This suggestion really surprised me. Hill Top feeds some of our refused feed back to our far-off dry cows. The refused feed is usually from the high lactation group so may be too high in energy for the far-off dry cows. Perhaps we should consider feeding the refused feed to our late lactation group. (The refused feed is also called push-out feed. It is the feed that cows did not eat and is pushed outside prior to giving cows new feed.) |
The take home messages are as follows:
| 1) | Dairymen in most of the world are going through a period of prolonged low prices paid for their milk. |
| 2) | There are only two ways to lower the fixed costs of producing milk. They are to increase production per cow or increase cow numbers. |
| 3) | Dairymen must produce and sell more milk when prices are low. This is their only way to cash flow and survival. |
| 4) | Dairymen must examine feed costs very carefully. There is usually an opportunity to save feed costs by constant evaluation and study of ration costs. |
| 5) | Feed additives and feed ingredients that do not clearly generate more milk production should be placed on the possible list for removal from the diet. |
| 6) | Careful formulation of diets based on laboratory analyses with price-competitive ingredients is still the best way to combat low milk prices. |
| 7) | A general rule is "Do not do anything that will decrease milk production". |
(Parts of this article were published in Agri-View, December 26, 2002)
News Letter from Dr. Whitmore, February No.1-2 2003
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