Cost Analysis of Raising Replacement Dairy Heifers

Abstract

on 18 and 15 milking and custom heifer operations respectfully. Average number of Holstein heifers was 108.57 and 78.46 for milking and custom heifer operations respectfully. A cost analysis spreadsheet was carried out with an Excel 2003 Microsoft file. The spreadsheet estimated the costs to raise a replacement heifer by specific age classes. The average total cost to raise a replacement heifer for this data set was lower for custom heifers operations compared to milking ones. The findings presented by this study emphasize the importance of understanding the economics of raising replacement dairy heifers on an individual operation basis. KEYWORDS: cost, heifer raising, operation, INTRODUCTION Raising replacement dairy heifers represent a major expense to dairy operations. Due to the nature of replacement heifer management, a dairy operation has to invest feed, labor and capital for 23 to 25 months and sometimes more without receiving any realized benefits