Dairy management: what to do with cull cows?

Pregnancy diagnosis scanners are operating at peak capacity at this time of year.

Darting from farm to farm delivering their news, the fate of over 200,000 cows depends on their diagnosis.

Cows with a positive result will get to live for another year, while the writing is on the wall for empty cows.

Farmers are asking what’s the best thing to do with the not in calf cows?

Grass supply

In my view, it all depends on grass supply.

If your farm is highly stocked and demand for grass is high, or if for whatever reason you were unable to build up average farm cover, then selling empty cows now makes sense.

The reason for this is that extra supplement will be needed to keep grass in the herd’s diet over the next few months.

Costs

If a farmer with 100 cows has to feed 4kg of meal for the next six weeks to keep grass in the diet until November, the cost, at €280/t for meal, will be €4,704 for 16.8t of meal.

Let’s also presume that if the farmer had a lower stocking rate or had enough grass built up on the farm, he or she would get away with feeding 2kg of meal.

So the cost of the extra concentrate is €2,352 for 8.4t of meal.

Empty

Let’s also presume that 10% of the cows are empty and they are eating a total of 18kg dry matter.

Over the six weeks, these 10 cows would eat 7.56tDM.

So selling these 10 cows early would save the need to feed the extra supplement and save the farmer €2,352.

But what about the value of the milk that won’t be produced if the cows are sold?

To keep the sums easy, let’s say the 10 cows produce on average 18 litres of milk per day over the next six weeks at a milk price of 35c/l.

That’s a total milk value of €2,646, which is €294 greater than the saving in meal.

Effectively, it’s a break-even sum based purely on feed and milk prices.

Of course, there will be some other savings to be made in terms of time, labour and vet bills.

However, the sale price should also be considered.

Good demand

There appears to be a good demand for empty cows at present.

Prices for younger, straight cows are said to be around €700 to €800/head.

Later in the season, when more stock comes on the market, cow prices are usually a lot less at around €400 to €500/head – a swing of around €300/head.

Over the 10 cows, this equates to €3,000 for the farm.

Based on this, earlier selling is more advantageous.

However, if you could build up the grass and extend it into the autumn, you would have the advantage of lower feed costs and also retain the extra milk. That is the real win-win.

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