Feed Costs

Drilling down to the per-cow level can help keep a tighter handle on overall cost of production. Utilizing income over feed costs can balance all aspects of maintaining a productive and profitable herd.

Because feed costs can represent 50 percent of the total cost to produce milk, dairy farmers are trying to reduce feed costs. However, with the wrong feed choices, farmers could save 10 cents a day while losing 50 cents of income.

Outlined below are several factors to consider to help improve your ration economics while maintaining milk yield.

The average cost to produce milk has climbed substantially so far this year. While the Federal Reserve debates inflation, it’s clear it has already arrived at dairy farms.

With rising feed costs, ensure that proper nutrition is maintained for growing heifers and dry cows.

Markets always have a tendency to fall faster than they increase. That was very evident again recently as Class III futures plummeted over a three-day period. Another aspect of the market that has really moved to the forefront is the concern over high feed prices and what the impact will have on milk production. 

A lot of volatility has been occurring in the commodity markets during the last couple of months. The question is whether we can do something to put up a fight in this situation.

Feed prices have escalated over the last year. This is enough of a problem, but what if you aren’t getting the quality – or even the feed ingredients – that you are paying for? Here are some simple guidelines to ensure you are receiving the ingredients that you paid for.

Feed costs tend to the be the largest expense on a dairy operation and managing those costs contributes to a dairy's ability to be profitable.

Dairy farmers could significantly reduce their expenses by selecting cows with the highest feed efficiency, which are the cows that produce the same or more milk while consuming less feed.