Options when finishing cull dairy cows

What are your options when selling cull cows from the dairy herd? Are cull cows viewed as low priority stock on farm and as such, is their potential sale value overlooked?

With so many herds working on a year-round calving profile, cull cows sales are spread across the year rather than grouped for sale.

This can make it harder to add value to these animals as trying to feed smaller batches of cows can be time consuming and complicate the system.

Options

For many dairy farmers with herds under TB movement restrictions, there is only one option available whereby cows move straight to an abattoir for slaughter.

But for others operating without movement restrictions, selling cows to specialist finishers as they are dried off, or selling cows in-milk after calving, may provide an alternative outlet.

With supplies of good-quality silage reportedly tight on a number of dairy farms, it may well be beneficial to consider your options now.

Selling cull cows earlier than normal may help to save on higher-quality forage that can be better utilised by higher yielding cows.

Considerations

Before selling cull cows, you should firstly consider:

While you may wish to simply offload cull cows as normal, completing a few budgets may be a worthwhile exercise. There are basically three main options for marketing cows and outlined as follows.

1 - Sell cow after drying off

For a farm business operating with a cashflow deficit, the urgency for a cash injection may mean cows need to be sold once they are dried off. This example assumes these cows are not in-calf.

Cow quality and body condition is important if these animals are to be sold through a mart.

In recent weeks, fleshed dairy cows have been selling around £1/kg liveweight. Thin cows have a lower value, typically selling for 50p to 60p/kg liveweight. On a 600kg cow, the difference in sale value between these animals is as much as £300 per head.

Farmers with adequate feed and housing space should consider holding these cows for a short period to increase body condition before selling on for further feeding.

Feeding 30kg/day of good-quality silage (£25/t) and 8kg/day of rolled barley (£140/t) for 40 days after the animal has dried off will increase body condition and liveweight by 40kg to 50kg.

Minerals should be fed also. A simple 14% beef ration could be fed as an alternative to rolled barley, but will increase the feed cost.

As detailed in Table 1, total feed costs to hold these cows for 40 days would amount to £75 per cow.

Therefore, depending on the quality and condition of your cows, it may be beneficial to hold them for a short period to improve condition and increase sale value.

Where silage supplies are tight, you could put cows on to ad-lib meal and straw for a 40-day period, but do your sums on feed costs first.

2 - Intensively finish

In larger dairy herds, there is more likely to be a bigger number of cull cows that can be grouped separately to justify intensive finishing.

Similarly, where herds are restricted due to TB, finishing is the only option for cull cows.

When finishing cows, energy is the most important aspect of the diet and getting as much dry matter energy into the cow every day as possible. Protein levels should be less than 14%.

Finishing periods should be 50 to 80 days depending on the type and condition of cows being fed. Younger cows will respond better to feeding than older cows.

Lame cows will be less efficient convertors, so it is important to stick to a defined finishing period to ensure cows are gaining enough weight to cover daily finishing costs.

A simple mix of rolled barley and sugar beet pulp will suffice for finishing cows. A maize-based ration can also be used. Meal can be fed on an ad-lib basis with straw, or with a mix of silage and straw. Cows will have a high response in the first 30 to 40 days of finishing.

After this, feed conversion and daily weight gain starts to drop off. Cows should be sold once the value of weight gain no longer covers daily feed costs. Assuming the cow averages 12kg/day of meal (£180/t) for 70 days, feed costs will be around £2.30/day when adding in the cost of straw.

Total feed finishing costs (meal plus straw) will be £164, as outlined in Table 1. With P grade cows making £2.20/kg to £2.30/kg, a 290kg P3 grading Holstein cow would be worth £652.

A simple feed cost budget can be completed when cows are being dried off to determine whether the animal is better sold live or fed for slaughter.

3 - Sell freshly calved

For cows that are in-calf but due to be sold because of poor production or age, selling the cow as a freshly calved animal may be the best option.

The sooner these cows are sold after calving, the better. This removes the temptation of holding them for another year.

With dairy markets improving and winter bonus payments being applied to milk sales, some farmers may look to delay selling these cows to maximise income over the next few months.

Holding these cows for too long will reduce sale value when they are sold. Body condition will not be as good as when the cow calved, which may affect sale value.

With cows that you plan to sell in-milk, keep them grouped together, where possible, for feeding and management purposes. This will remind you that these animals are to be culled.

Having adequate feed is important in this option. Feeding the cow for a 60-day dry period on 40kg/silage of silage and 2kg/day of meal (£220/t) will cost around £86 before factoring in straw, minerals and any veterinary treatments required.

But with improving farmer confidence within the dairy sector, calved cows are in demand, which should see animals command a much higher sale value compared to selling the animal in-calf once dried off.

This higher sale value should cover the cost of holding the animal until she has calved again.