News June - July 2020
Preg rate drives profitability
~Julie Ainsworth, Coordinator, Dairy Production Analysis, CentralStar Cooperative
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herd as they invested more in genetic selection.
egardless of milk price, pregnancy rate remains a main driver of profitability on your dairy. Each point improvement in pregnancy rate can be worth $15-$35 per cow/per year, therefore continued focus in this area is important. Here are a few ways improving pregnancy rate influences your dairy’s bottom-line.
More consistent lactation and dry period lengths. Cows with long days in milk are very low, or even negative on income over feed costs. Exceptionally long or short dry periods also adversely affect the profitability of individual cows. Each day dry over 60 days costs about $3, and each day dry under 40 costs around $2.
More milk from the same number of cows. Reducing the average days in milk results in more milk from the same number of cows. This allows a larger portion of the herd to be earlier in lactation, which is the highest producing end of the lactation curve.
Heifers calving at the appropriate age and condition. Poor reproductive performance in heifers means increased feed and rearing costs, resulting in raising more heifers than needed.
Older, more profitable cows. Decreased culling due to reproductive failure keeps older cows in the herd longer. First lactation heifers are outperformed by high producing older cows that have already paid for their rearing costs, allowing production to go straight to the bottom line.
The importance of pregnancy rate is not new, but certainly worth repeating. If you would like help finding ways to improve your herd’s pregnancy rate, ask your CentralStar team. We are here to help!
A study done by Compeer Financial and Zoetis found pregnancy rate to be one of six factors that account for 85 percent of the variation in profitability in herds. In their study of over 400 Midwest herds, the top one-third of herds for profitability had a pregnancy rate of 27 percent, and the lowest 18 percent. The higher profit dairies continued to extend their advantage into future generations of the
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Receive a 5% rebate on ALL semen purchases for June, July, and August 2020. Semen rebate will be reflected on your September statement. Account must be current on 8/31/20 to receive rebate. Ask your CentralStar team for details.