Before building a freestall barn, our cows were housed in tie stalls and loose housing. As you might find in many tie stall barns, ours had cow trainers. Cow trainers look like a thin metal upside-down “T” hanging down from a hot wire strung above the stalls. Their job is to get a cow to [...]
Dairy Jeopardy for $1,000: The answer is -437, -254, and -183. The question: How many Total herds, Grade A herds and Manufacturing Grade herds did Ohio lose between February 2005 and April 2011? Dairy Double Jeopardy: The answer is +3,000. The question: How did cow numbers change in the same time period? The first answer [...]
Total cost of production per cwt., feed cost per cwt, net farm income per cow. These are important numbers for every farm as they monitor profitability, develop and monitor risk management plans and look for opportunities. These are also numbers that allow one farm to compare their production and financial management with similar farms. How [...]
Through the years, I have occasionally strayed off the strictly educational or informative path in this column. It is happening again today… because late Saturday night we lost a heifer. Just three weeks ago, Steve came in and said one of the Holstein heifers in the prefresh pen was going into labor (it was, of [...]
Last Thursday, a tornado laid a path of destruction through the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center campus and surrounding community. In light of all the destruction, the true blessing was the minimal injuries to people and animals, especially with the Wayne County Fair wrapping up just down the road. Total cost Considerable time will [...]
COLUMBUS — How to price corn for silage is a perennially challenging question. The best answer will vary depending on the point of view: Are you buying or are you selling?
Last weekend’s heat was the most challenging for bovines of all ages (and their people) so far this year. Milking cows are usually the primary focus of heat stress abatement strategies, as they are the animals generating the most heat on the farm due to their size and their stages of lactation. While they are [...]
Cash flow planning. These are three words that typically inspire a response along the lines of “ugh,” “why?” or “never done it, never will.” If anything was ever going to happen to change that response, it would be the $1.50 drop in the Class III price from February to March, or more likely, the need [...]
The cost of production number, combined with the four key numbers outlined in this article, will help each dairy farm define the point where the business is unlikely to be able to bounce back.
Most dairy producers were glad to see 2009 come to a close and are looking forward to a better dairy economy this year. Even though many farm families are facing net operating losses, income tax management is still an important issue that should be high on the 2010 “to-do”. Tax concerns. Why are income taxes [...]
