The rearing costs of young stock on dairy farms compared with the net return of the heifers and the management skills of the farmers in the Netherlands.

Abstract

An important part of a dairy farm is the rearing of young stock. This has to be done accurately, not only because the new dairy cows will replace the old ones, but also as a lot of money is involved. This has become clear in previous research, which has shown that the successful rearing of one heifer costs €1.540. This is 13% of the cost price of milk.9 To gain more understanding in young stock rearing costs, 40 farms from the Veterinary Centre Zuid-Oost Drenthe were visited. During this visit, calculations of young stock rearing costs were made with the spreadsheet Jonkos from , among others, WUR Livestock Research. In this study, the average of the young stock rearing costs on the visited farms was €1.967 per heifer, with costs ranging from €919 to €3.307. It was also shown that increased scaling is beneficial for costs. An increase in scaling factors researched led to a lower total young stock rearing cost per heifer. An increase in milk production (β=-0,337; P=0,028), the number of dairy cows (β=-0,360; P=0,037) or the number of young stock (β=-0,435; P=0.009) were all significant factors leading to reduction of costs. The age at first calving (AFC) was vice versa: a increase in AFC lead to a significant rise in the rearing costs per heifer (β=0,551; P=0,001). Comparing the net returns from the heifers with the AFC (P=0,109) also showed a remarkable result, namely that there was no significant link between the two. This is surprising, as a lot of farmers claim to experience otherwise. The net returns of the heifers compared with the score of the veterinarian was shown to be almost significant (P=0,054), suggesting that a higher level of management skills may lead to an increase in the net returns.