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Sunnyside, WA | "The ONLY way dairy cow slaughter can go up while at the same time milk line numbers go up too...is likely due to sexed semen ie...alot more hiefers in their total herd mix. MO."
Sorry, not the only way. Low prices caused a lot of dairymen to cull heavily and get rid of non-profitable cows in low milk prices. These are usually open cows. Pregnant cows were kept usually.
Dairymen have also got much better at what they do. Average preg rate used to be 15%. Heat detection low, conception rate low. Its hard to find a dairy in this area that is below 20% preg rate. A few over 25%. We run right at 25% in our herd for the whole year. Calving interval is 2 days under 13 months. Better reproduction means shorten calving intervals which produces more calves more often and it snowballs.
With high priced replacements a few years ago, most dairymen did a lot of correcting the calf raising programs to keep mortality and morbidity in the calves much lower. More live, healthy calves equals more replacements. We did not use sexed semen, but calve on average our heifers at 22 months. Almost have as many heifers as we do milking and dry cows. I can remain a constant herd size with a 47% cull rate right now. Do I grow, beef cows off, or sell milking cows or springers? Oh, and I have done all of this with no sexed semen for the last four years. I did use a some when it first came out, but it netted me only a few more heifers that what I was getting without it.
Please show me the numbers for producing 80 lbs of milk on a $3/cow per day ration. I am asking you to produce the actual ration and costs to get this done. You have provided no facts what so ever. I would like you to poke holes in the facts I have presented above.
Edited by J. Sheehan 1/9/2011 16:29
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The Year of Feeding Dangerously
