A2B-Lancntar Fanning, Saturday, NoVemberm,- <994
GEORGE F.W. HAENLEIN
Extension Dairy Specialist
University of Delaware
NEWARK. Del. Cheese on
the National Cheese Exchange is
Wisconsin recently dropped 20
cents per pound, resulting a price
decline at the farm gate in this area
of about $2 per 100 pounds of
fluid milk.
This translates into different in
come losses per 100-cow herd per
month, depending on the level of
milk production per cow per year
as shown on DHIA reports. For an
18,000 milk pounds per cow herd
the monthly income loss will be
$3,600.
Delaware DHIA dairy herds
milked on average 19,127 pounds
per cow per year in 1993. The
highest herd had 23,911 pounds
and the lowest 14,680 pounds
all Holsteins! a considerable
spread in the efficiency of produc
ing milk and in cost per pound of
milk.
Obviously, one cow with more
milk has a lower maintenance plus
production cost per pound of milk
than the other cow with less milk.
The first way to cope with low
er milk prices may be to increase
milk level per cow.
What increase in milk produc
tion will make up for a certain
drop in milk price? Given a $2
drop, and if all other costs remain
the same, it’s necessary to in
crease milk per cow by 4,000
pounds in order to maintain the
same level of income and profit.
This is an enormous increase,
and one hard to achieve, except
maybe through 3X milking or
other extraordinary means, heavy
'culling, a much shorter calving in
terval, better heat detection or bet
ter sires.
The temptation on many farms
is instead to add cows. But this
never lowers cost of milk per cow!
It only adds gross income per
farm, while at the same time in
creasing feed costs, labor, costs
and veterinary expenses, and re
quires more room and facilities,
including more feed bunk space.
All of this could put a strain on the
production level of the existing
herd and lower it, thus increasing
cost of milk per cow.
Because feed is the largest ex
pense item in total milk produc
tion, it’s important to evaluate on
a regular basis the feed ingredients
and their prices to find new cost
savings without decreasing the
daily level of required nutrient
supply to each cow.
Regardless of the other tricky
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Coping With Lower Milk Prices
details of ration formulation, the
main concerns are and will be
energy, protein, fiber and calcium.
These can be supplied equally
well and interchangeably by vari
ous feed sources, which will have
different prices attached to them.
The following ration ingredi
ents usually are bargains per
pound of protein: brewers grain
dry or wet, com gluten feed,
whole cottonseed, soy hulls,
wheat middlings, and often alfalfa
hay and high-quality grazing.
By dividing the price of eeed
per ton by its protein content or
energy content, you can determine
the price per pound of protein or
energy unit for that particular
feed. This gives you the oppor
tunity to compare bargain feed
buys.
The feed’s fiber content must
be low for the digestible energy
content to be effectively high. But
on many farms, the hay feeding is
so little and the fiber length of the
haylage or silage chopped so short
that it becomes necessary to feed
extra fiber length to avoid low fat
content in the milk and displaced
abomasum cases.
Whatever the situation, it is
generally folly to decrease grain
and protein feeding in order to re
duce feed costs and maintain pro
fitability. Even if the milk price
was to drop to $lO per hundred
pounds and the grain supplement
price was to rise to $ll per hund
red pounds, the milk income
above total feed costs would still
favor normal supplement feeding
required to keep up high milk pro
duction levels.
The second way to deal with
lower milk prices may be to con
tinue to' feed for high production
but to shop for bargain feed in
gredients.
Per
$21.00 Year
Two
$40.00 Years
In PA, NJ, OH, MD.
DE, NY, VA ft WV
(Other Areas $31.00 Per Year or
$59.00 For Two Years)
What else can be done to cope
with lower milk prices?
Count how many cows are
milked by one person per hour on
your farm. To calculate this, di
vide the total pounds of milk sold
per day by the hours per day it
took to milk that amount Then ap
ply the price of milk and the salary
per hour to those totals.
You may be surprised at the fig
ures you get on your farm and
compare them to those on your
neighbors’ farms.
Some of these figures could be
embarrassing when you consider
that on some farms more than 100
cows are milked per person per
hour, or more than 7,000 pounds
milk per person per hour.
I have made these calculations
for the DHIA herds in Delaware.
The third way for making more
money may be to improve the
milking labor efficiency.
And in the category of labor,
what about feeding your calves?
How many hours of labor does
feeding calves cost per day?
We have reduced the costs here
at the University of Delaware’s
dairy farm from two hours to IS
minutes per day just by converting
to computer nursing. The result
has been better nutrition, healthier
calves and better weight gains. If
you would like to know more
about our automated system, ask
for a video we’ve made. Just send
me $8 to cover the cost of the half
hour video, we have no financial
interest or involvement in the
electronic nursing system.
So the fourth way may be to
take advantage of a profit oppor
tunity by converting to computer
nursing for calves.
Another way of coping with
lower milk prices is the monthly
milk and herd record-keeping ex-
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penses as provided by DHIA or by
computer milking systems. It
doesn’t make sense to try to save
costs by discontinuing such record
keeping systems. It's more likely
the efficiency per cow will slip
without the dairy farmer’s know
ing when, where, who and why.
It’s a good idea to divide the
monthly cost of DHIA by the
number of cows (or by the pounds
of milk per day) to determine your
farms’ record-keeping cost per
cow and per hundred pounds of
milk.
I have made this calculation for
all our Delaware dairy farms on
DHIA. Some of them pay almost
twice as much per cow than some
of their neighbors, and not neces
sarily for any good reason or bene
fit.
There are alternatives. If you
don’t milk your cows to sell dairy
offspring or if you are interested
only in a good milk income, then
the bargain record-keeping system
that still comes with an “official”
tag is the so-called AM/PM sys
tem. You pay only for the milk
tester to come once to your farm
instead of both morning and night
Is it less accuratge than the tra
ditional system of two tests per
day? Not really, neither in fat tests
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nor in milk pounds.
Most of my Delaware DHIA
members on AM/PM claim the fat
test is more on target than when
two samples per day are taken.
And milk yield varies from day to
day per cow as much as any inac
curacy from AM/PM factor calcu
lations. So, thinking you can feed
your cows more accurately from
two milk yield records per day
than from one AM/PM record is
also not true.
Thus, the fifth way may be to
switch from regular DHIA to AM/
PM. This can mean greater cost
savings without sacrificing pro
duction efficiency and validity of
record information. At least
switch to APCS, which is two
milk records but only one milk
sample per day tested for fat.
Of course, changing from
wholesaling your milk to retailing
some or all of your milk is one
more avenue for coping with low
er milk prices.
Another is making value-added
products, such as yogurt and
cheese, for retail sale from your
farm.
Still another way is alternative
milking animals such as dairy
sheep and dairy goats.
It does
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