A2B-Lanc«BtBf Fanning, Saturday, May 6, 2000
DHIA Service Center, Orchard Road, University Park, PA 16802
Question: Has reducing the
age at first calving in our herd
led to higher culling rates?
To answer this question I
looked back to a time period
between May 1997 and Mayl99B.
I wanted to see how many cows
are still in the herd that calved for
the first time then. During that
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2fiea£ctu TTCctli
time four years ago, a total of 178
new two-year-olds entered the
herd out of the heifer-growing
program. I calculated the average
age at first calving for all 178
heifers to be 25.7 months. This
has not changed significantly
from two years earlier when the
average age at first calving was
25.9 months.
Current DHIA test day records
indicate that of these same 178
animals, 106 remain in the herd
today. The 72 animals that have
been culled from this group since
May 1997 tally to 39.9% of the
total. Just looking at these culled
animals I calculate the average
age at first calving to be 26.1
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months. I looked further and
found that the 106 animals that
remain m the herd from this group
today had an average age at first
calving of 25.4 months. This is a
bit younger than both the culled
animals and the average for the
whole group of 178. We have no
reason to suspect that the age at
first calving has had any influence
on the cull rates.
One interesting fact that I came
across while looking at these
numbers is the culling rate of
animals that never reached their
second lactation. Of the 72 culled
animals, 45 (63.4%) were culled
sometime during their first
lactation. This converts to a 25%
cull rate of the first lactation
animals during this single year. A
lot of pressure is now on
survivability of older cows just to
maintain reasonable cull rates and
not to lower cow numbers.
The economic pressure that
these numbers put on the herd is
anyone’s guess right now. Some
local sales report grade Holsteins
bringing $lBOO to $2500 per
head. Even at a very conservative
$l5OO and beef cow prices of
$6OO, a 40% cull rate will add
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$1.44 to the production cost of
producing milk. To calculate this
we take the market value of
replacements and subtract the
salvage value of cows and
multiply that by the percent
culling rate. We then divide this
by the milk production per cow in
hundred weights, ex. ((1500-600)
X 40%) / (25.000RHA/100). We
could reduce this replacement
cost to $1.19 per cwt. milk if the
Chicken Survey:
Each Person Consumes
81 Pounds Per Year
MODESTO, Calif. The
boom in chicken consumption in
recent years still has room to
grow, according to research re
leased recently by the National
Chicken Council (NCC) and the
U.S. Poultry & Egg Association
(USPOULTRY.)
American consumers are
eating an unprecedented 81
pounds of chicken per person
this year and plan to purchase
even more chicken in the
months to come, according to
the survey which was released in
conjunction with a food writers
convention in Las Vegas.
" * ■V£»-¥*'V*'**f*****f *¥*4l* s
330 Fonderwhite Road, Lebanon, PA 17042
cull rate was reduced to 33%
Plug in your own numbers and
see the cost of culling on your
farm. One thing is certain, losing
25% of the animals that have not
paid for their growing costs will
lead to economic hardships or
maybe worse. We need to search
the reasons behind the culling rate
in able to reduce it. How do we
do that? Yes, you guessed it,
RECORDS!!!
California Poutby Federation
President Bill Mattos, who at
tended the conference, said
chicken enjoys the highest per
capita consumption of any of
the major meats, with beef in
second place at 69 pounds per
person and pork at S 2 pounds.
The survey found that 89 per
cent of the respondents ate
chicken at least once a week and
some 36 percent consumed
chicken three times or more per
week. A net of seven percent in
dicated they planned to eat even
more chicken purchased at
supermarkets and food stores in
the next 12 months.
717-273-4544
Fax 717-273-5186