Does High Production
(Continued from Page 23)
“When you are looking at production per cow,
getting bigger doesn’t help you that much, but get
ting better does,” he said.
To maximize your current facilities, Brose recom
mends filling the barn “or each cow needs to pro
duce more milk to break even,” he said.
“We build a barn, but we don’t finance for the
cows to fill it up. Those empty stalls are extremely
expensive. Do the math on an empty stall. We can
afford a $2,000 heifer rather than having an empty
stall,” said Brose.
Poor replacement rearing or allowing dry cows to
take up valuable space in the barn also hurts the
bottom line. “There are cheaper places to house dry
cows effectively than in a tie-stall barn.”
“Fill slots with the most profitable cows,” he said,
recommending that producers cull the lower end of
cows.
Brose also recommended not overcrowding the
herd which may produce as much milk with a
fewer number of animals if they are not crowded.
Switching gears, Brose investigated whether high
production is stressful to the animal and going to
result in other hidden costs.
“If you expect a cow to give more milk, you have
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to give her the extra feed,” he said. Even though the
feed is additional cost, the math works out, since
one pound of dry matter will yield two and a half
pounds of milk.
According to Brose, “once maintenance require
ments are met, expect each additional pound of dry
matter to bring an extra 2.5 pounds of milk.”
The extra feed may cost 6-8 cents, however 2.5
pounds milk equals 30 cents in the bank.
“Your seven cents gives you a 30 percent return.
You can throw a little feed away at the end of the
day (the extra that she does not eat) it’s worth it
to get her to eat that extra pound.”
Stress exerting a force on a cow that changes
her normal physiology “requires a’ cow to re
spond to that stress and that takes energy,” said
Brose.
“Does high production cause stress or is high pro
duction caused by the removal of stress?” he asked.
“Remove the stress and for our efforts we’re getting
paid in milk production.
“High production is healthy its normal for
these cows. The transition time is what we want to
concentrate on and remove stress,” he said.
Brose cited a study of a 550-cow herd where the
high-producing cows showed better reproductive
performance.
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