€1200 to maintain a cow on a grass based dairy system

14 Sep 2012

Profit Monitor system for Irish Dairy farms averaged a cost of €1200 to keep a cow for a year on a dairy farm in Ireland. With the cost of production at 24 cents and the cost of milk at 32cents each cent profit by 6000 litres, this makes little economic sense.

Testimonials

We have been using ReproDoc Ltd for the past 14 years to scan our pedigree British Friesian herd in order to get accurate calving dates, identify those cows carrying twins, identify problematic cows and rectify same in order to give them an opportunity to go in calf. We use a stock bull so it is essential that we have an assessment of bull fertility before it gets too late into the breeding season. We find that the service is spot on with the dates.

We find that May is an excellent time to scan the dairy herd to deal with late calving cows, get an assessment of overall fertility in the herd and get accurate ageing of pregnancies.

We follow this up with an end of season pregnancy scan in September when the bull has been removed 30 days. At that stage, we only have to scan those cows not confirmed pregnant greater than 30 days from the previous scan in late May.

Pat and Mary O Connor
Banogue, Co Limerick