Good Recotds
improve dairy profits
How would you like to
increase your net profits by I
$30 or more per cow next 1
year? That would mean an 1
extra $1,050 profit on a 35- |
cow herd. A lot of dairymen I
around the country are do
ing this and their "secret”
is making use of detailed
production records.
During the past two
years a group of dairymen
in a nearby midwestem
state increased average an
nual production by 1,118
pounds of milk and 34
pounds of fat just by start
ing on a record-keeping
system and making use ol
the records in managing
their herds. “The thing I
was most suqrrised alxmt
was the numlxir of cows 1
had that were not making
me a cent,” commented one
dairyman. Since he began
keeping production records,
this dairyman has boosted
the net income from his
24-cow herd by an extra
$768 a year.
wny are mese recorus
such a help? First of all,
few dairymen know exactly
how much milk their indi
vidual cows are producing.
“I thought some of my cows
were giving about 9,(XX)
pounds a year, but when I
started keeping records I
found they weren’t nearly
that good,” says a Michigan
dairyman. It didn’t take him
long to cull out the loafers.
By improving his feeding
and management he has
boosted the average of his
25 cows to 10,000 pounds of
milk and at the same time
has tripled net income. “If
a cow doesn’t now produce
better than 8,000 pounds of
milk a year she’s not worth
much to me,” he says.
Records are a big help in
seeing that your cows are
fed right, too. A number of
dairymen have found they
have been feeding some
cows twice as much grain
as needed while others have
been underfed. Roth nrac
tices are quite costly.
Take for instance a 50
cow herd being fed a con
centrate mix costing $3 a
cwt. If each cow in the herd
is getting one pound more
grain than she needs each
day, you’re wasting $45 a
month. On the other hand,
a cow that’s being under
fed by one pound of con
centrate a day will end up
producing an average of
two pounds less milk than
her daily potential. If you’re
getting $4 per cwt. for milk
that’s a loss of about $2.40
a month. Assuming that
daily one-half the cows are
being overfed and the rest
underfed by one pound of
grain each, this means
you’re losing a total of
$82.50 a month on a 50
cow herd. Through proper
feeding you would gain
an extra $1,000 a year.
Here's a central process
ing center set up to auto
matically tabulate dairy
production records.
While initial cost of these
centers is high, charges
to the dairyman are very
reasonable since his are
only a few of many thou
sands of individual cow
records that are proc
essed here each month.
The information record
ed for each cow at the
I farm is punched into
cards. Electronic comput
ers then make fast work
of analyzing the data.
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It doesn't take much time to weigh each cow's milk
one day a month and record it on proper forms. After
butterfat tests have been made and all calculations
completed you can tell exactly how valuable each
of your cows is to the dairy operation. Dairymen
whb make use of such records are quick to back up
the value of such worth-while information. Many of
them say, "We wouldn't be without these records If
the charge was twice this high." Besides helping to
improve profits, records can be a big help in obtain
ing needed credit from local lending agencies.