Dairy Farmers I need a couple answers if you will!

[ONThorsegirl]

I'm taking Agriculture at school, although I'm not from a Dairy Farm, I live on a Beef farm but know the basics of a Dairy farm since being here. I have milked etc. There are just a couple things I don't know.

I ahve to do a project for one of my classes "Large Herd" and we have to create a farm for a large herd from 150-400 cows.

and one of the questions is how many Dry Cows, Heifers and Calves will you have?

I'm doing a farm for 175 cows, but enough stalls to expand to 200 in this barn. So how many Dry Cows would a farm this size normally have? and Replacement Heifers and calves?

Thanks! I will probably have more questions as I go on with this project.

Melissa

[NICC08]

well its as simple as basic math...

in a perfect world a cow would have a calf every 12 months. So for 175 cows you would have 175 calves/yr. if you calve yr round thats 14.6 calves/month. If you wean at 8 weeks you'd have 28 calves in hutches. You would also have somewhere in the same neighborhood of dry cows at a 60 day dry period. You would also have 175+/- replacements of various ages figuring a 50% heifer crop every year.

Now thats in a perfect world where a cow gives 100+lbs/day consistantly, never sees a vet, and has a calf every 365 days on the dot. Now we both know thats not how it goes...so adjust those figures accordingly.

[65284]

Melissa, I had to do something like this in school...................over 50 years ago, so I may not remember correctly. But I think the equation went something like this: if you wanted 175 in the milking string on a yearly basis... 365 days x 175 cows= 63,875 milking days. 175 cows x 280 days average cow lactation= 49,000 milking days, a difference of 14,875 milking days. 14,875 milking days divided by 280 day lactation periods = 53.125 being the # of cows needed to make up the difference. These are strictly hypothetical math figures that assume every thing will go as projected, no deaths, sick cows, no miscarriages, no short lactations, all cows breed back on time, etc. If my memory has failed me, as it quite frequently does, someone please correct me.

[DaleK]

Leave room for 35-40 dry cows. You aren't going to have that many all the time, but you'll have times when you have more cows dry than others. Particularly for Ontario where you need to have more cows calving August-September to fill fall incentive days. On average you're probably 25-30 dry cows.

If you have 230-240 calving a year including first-calf heifers you'll be doing pretty well. With the border open again you'll want more room for heifers to sell as springers or calve out and sell fresh since you don't need the milk yourself.

I'd leave room for 100-120 heifers 12 months-calving, about 90 from weaning to twelve months, and 30 or so calves pre-weaning. With the bob calf markets in Ontario you want to keep them at least 2 weeks or else you're going to take a big hit selling the bulls so leave room for them.

Send me a private message if you like.

[ONThorsegirl]

Thanks Guys...I have class soon, but I will be back to ask more questions!

Thanks Again!

Melissa