1. Feed Costs on Fond du Lac Farms (& Others)
Paul Dyk
December
Dairy Forage Day

2. What does is cost to feed a cow?
Sources
Nutritionist
USDA
Averages
Base Diets
Good for Trends
Where am I at?

3. Starting Points – Places to Go

6. What is the average Feed Cost on WI Dairy Farm?
WI Center for Dairy Profitability
Purchased Feed Costs
What is purchased?
Protein & Minerals
Corn
Heifer Feed
Forages?
Combination of the above

7. Small Survey / Tool Development
Agents across the state
Development of Collection tool (online and spreadsheet)
Collection of data from across the state

8. 8 Victor E. Cabrera, Dairy Ration Economics, 4 December 2009
Wisconsin Dairy
Feed Evaluator
General, Production, and Income Information
Farm and reporter identification
Milk and components
Price received for milk
Victor E. Cabrera, Dairy Ration Economics, 4 December 2009
08:12

9. Farms included
3 parts of the state (Fond du Lac, Jefferson, West Side of State)
Collect info on farm, assistance of nutritionists and producers
Purchased prices were current prices of feed (may include contracts)

10. What Prices to Use for Forages?
Producer Prices
Guesses at best
Not moisture adjusted
Not based on markets or actual costs
Standardize
All US Alfalfa Hay Price
Corn Price Received WI
Corn Silage (multiplied by 10)

11. Can we compare farms? Issues with home grown feed
Issues with corn prices
Issues with quality of information

12. Standardized Forage Prices
All US Hay Price
Tracked and Published by USDA
September 2009, $110/ton

13. Standardized Corn Price
Corn Price Received WI
From USDA
October 2008, $4.00/bu (OK, $3.98)
$4/bu or $142.86/ton + $15 processing = $158/ton
Purchased corn price used where applicable
Corn Silage Price
$40/ton
Coming out of silo (includes harvesting, packing, fermentation)

14. Comparing the Farms (Milk and BF%)

15. Dry Cow (Intake and Cost)

24. Feed Efficiency
Dairy or feed efficiency reflects the level of fat-corrected milk yield produced per unit of dry matter consumed with an optimal range of 1.4 to 1.8 pounds of milk per pound of dry matter.
Days in milk, age, growth, changes in body condition score, body weight, forage quality, feed additives, and environmental factors will impact feed efficiency values.
One group all cows, 1.4 to 1.6
(Hutjens, 2005)

25. Monensin Effects
Table 4. Summary of effectiveness of monensin by level (nine studies).
Level of monensin (g/ton) Control 11g/t 15g/t 22g/t
Dry matter intake (lb/day)
Milk yield (lb/day)
Milk fat (%)
Milk protein (%)
Solids corrected milk (lb)
3.5% FC milk (lb)
Dairy eff (lb 3.5/lb DM)
Imp milk efficiency (%) control

26. Future Plans Web-Based Tool Available to Public? Why?
Track on farm trends
Compare clients from one nutritionist
Compare across nutritionists

27. Benchmark of Wisconsin
IOFC
Farm #5: $3.13, 13.3%
92.3%
7.6%
Victor E. Cabrera, Dairy Ration Economics, 4 December 2009
7.6%
66.7%
08:12

28. Acknowledgements Cabrera, Victor (UWEX) Shaver, Randy (UWEX)
Bolton, Sterry, Milligan (UWEX)

29. Questions