We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.
The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ...
Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.
Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.
Summer is the time for PAR! In other words, you ‘Planned’ and ‘Acted’ and now is the time to ‘Review’.
So, three simple questions to ask yourself and to discuss with your management team/business partners:
One great tool in the CfDE toolbox which can help in this process is the ME budget. The ME budget is a spreadsheet that looks at the amount of energy (ME) needed to produce said amount of kgMS for the season. It will convert the figure back to dry matter, and then it will calculate if the farm supplies enough pasture and feed to produce the kgMS, for example:
The spreadsheet will also check to see if the diet offered to your cows is balanced, for example:
It will also calculate important utilisation figures, for example:
Then, using the farm working expenses and the $/kgMS for the season, it will calculate the net profit, for example:
One of the grand things about this budget is that you can run different scenarios and see what falls out of the bottom, such as:
Instead of running 850 cows as above, you can run 825 cows aiming for the same production of 482kgMS/cow/day and using the same milk price of $7.50/kgMS, for example:
You will see that, if you compare the two financial tables above, your total FWE have dropped from $4.37/kgMS to $4.21/kgMS and your net income EBITD has increased from $3.13/kgMS to $3.29/kgMS.
In this scenario, it is profitable to drop cow numbers.
For more information or if you would like to crunch some figures, please do not hesitate to get in touch with the Centre for Dairy Excellence on 027 693 7664.
Disclaimer: The responses shown are the best estimate on paper of what should happen with the figures given by the farmer at the time of the consultation. Centre for Dairy Excellence Limited cannot be made liable or take any responsibility due to so many variables outside of its control.