I occasionally venture out to the barn and walk through the pens looking for certain cows after a business meeting with clients. I scan the sea of cows, peeking high and low, looking for a particular eartag. Then I find her. A few days before the meeting, I ran a herd inventory report looking for the oldest and highest lifetime production cows in the herd. She is there either eating or lying down, doing what she has done for the past seven, eight, nine or even 10 lactations. I pay homage to her. What makes her so special that she made it this far, I wonder? From a financial perspective, a cow of this magnitude who has matched long life with health, reproductive efficiency and success, while also shipping 200,000-plus pounds of milk, bears witness to the incredible value that the productive, long life of the cow can provide to the bottom line.
Measuring and targeting productive life
While it is fun to see old cows, age alone is not enough. Producers must balance health, successful reproduction and genetic improvements. In terms of productivity, total lifetime pounds of milk shipped – or in particular, total lifetime fat and protein or energy-corrected milk shipped – are good evaluative measures for dairy herds.
One metric we routinely track with our client base is lifetime production of cull cows and dead cows. This tells us how much we get out of the cows while alive. Through our benchmarking, we have noticed a few interesting trends.
Generally speaking, lifetime production of dead cows is greater than that of cull cows, sometimes by as much as 20% more. On the surface, this is not earth-shattering information, but the insight lends itself to the concept that there is potentially more lifetime productivity left in cows when we are culling them. Within the benchmark, the average dairy achieved 93,138 pounds of lifetime production on dead cows and 84,057 pounds of lifetime production on cull cows. The average lactation and ages at death and cull were 3.4 lactations/58.7 months and 3.1 lactations/56.1 months, respectively. The top-performing operations were able to achieve several months and quarters where the lifetime production of culls and dead cows exceeded 100,000 pounds. In working with our herds, we try to achieve at least 82,000 pounds of lifetime production out of all cows, as a target.
To achieve high lifetime-production levels, reducing replacement rates is necessary to give cows enough time to maximize their production. In evaluating the benchmark herds further, the average cull rate of herds averaging over 84,000 pounds lifetime production was 24.1% with an average death loss of 5.84%, for a total replacement rate of 29.94%. It has been observed that several of these herds saw slightly higher death loss, an increase of 0.9% on average, with the increase in lifetime production. However, additional lifetime production of the herds increased about 5.8% over that same time, more than offsetting the value lost due to increased death loss.
However, targeting increased lifetime production must be approached with balance. Simply increasing age to achieve higher lifetime production isn’t sufficient to produce profitable results. Consider a three-legged stool with a balance of productive life, health and wellness, and efficient and effective reproduction rates. Herds in the comparative analysis showed an average somatic cell count (SCC) of 126,000, with an average pregnancy rate of 29.8%. These competitive SCC scores are indicative of overall herd health, along with a function of sound parlor management. There was a wide spectrum of reproduction strategies each herd in the benchmark employs, but focusing on efficiency with low services per conception was a key attribute of each herd. These are important considerations, as there tends to be a stigma that older cows are not as healthy or as reproductively efficient as younger herds with higher cull rates and greater percentages of first lactation. Based on the evidence shown with lifetime production as the focus on these herds, the perception of poor health and reproduction is not necessarily the case.
Lastly, balancing the herd's average lactation and heifer inventory are key measures to evaluate in increasing lifetime production. Additional evaluation of the benchmark for herds achieving lifetime production over 84,000 pounds showed that the average herd had 43% or greater third lactation plus as a makeup of their herd. There was wide distribution of percentages for first and second lactation, but when focusing on third and subsequent lactations, targeting over 40% of the herd in this group helped farms achieve greater lifetime production levels. Initial findings in the comparison of higher lifetime-production herds has shown that cows with half of a lactation more increases the potential for earnings by as much as 20%. Again, simply extending a lactation is not enough without health, successful reproduction rates and higher production. However, the findings do lend themselves to herds capitalizing on greater profitability by not culling cows sooner than necessary.
The combination of having a higher percentage of the herd with at least three lactations and replacement rates lower than 30% also allows these farms to maintain fewer heifers in inventory. This is where the double benefit to longevity comes into focus. Not only do many of these farms achieve 84,000 pounds or greater lifetime production and get more from their cows before they are culled or die, but by not needing to raise as many replacements, they are able to capitalize on greater dairy-beef cross calf income at the moment and raise fewer heifers than the average dairy farm. In fact, herds where the lifetime production of cull cows and dead cows were tracked averaged a 68.7% heifer-to-cow ratio. They were able to convert an average 15% more of their successful calvings to dairy-beef cross calves as compared to five years ago. When comparing two identical dairy farms with the exception of one dairy having a heifer-to-cow ratio of 84% and the other 68.7%, the dairy with the 68.7% heifer-to-cow ratio will increase earnings by over $204,000 in one year as compared to the dairy carrying 84% heifers to cows.
Action steps to achieve greater lifetime production in your herd
There is a laundry list of factors to manage when trying to achieve greater lifetime production, and we only touched on a few metrics in this article. However, there are a few action steps you can start to take within your herd today.
- Track performance of lifetime productivity. Depending on your livestock software program and whether you are tracking milk weights or not, many producers should be able to track and calculate the average age, average lactation and milk production levels of cull cows and dead cows. Creating a baseline value which you can compare against is the first step in extending lifetime production.
- Understand why we cull and the leading causes for mortality. In working with your employees, detailed reasons for culling and death loss are critical for understanding why cows leave your farm. More than just coding an animal as “repro,” or “production” or the ever-popular “other,” truly understanding why each cull is made can help you and your advisers address the biggest opportunities for increased lifetime production. In cooperation with them, you can correct health-related issues, formulate strategies around heifer inventories and target number of heifer calves to be born monthly, or hone in on potential facility improvements for various groups of cows.
- Think long-term. Consider for a moment that a sixth-lactation cow in 2025 was likely born in 2016-17. Referencing Kevin Jorgensen’s article in Progressive Dairy on breeding for fourth-, fifth- and sixth-lactation cows, he wrote that it is important to consider the attributes you are looking for in your herd 10 years from now because there likely will be a growing number of animals you breed for today who will still be around. There are new selection traits today that were not available in the past, and you can focus more on greater lifetime productivity as part of the reproduction and genetic strategy. Keep the long-term view in focus, and make lifetime productivity a part of your management strategy. Don’t forget to go see those older, high-lifetime-production cows in your herd today. With a focus on lifetime productivity, you will likely see more of them in the coming years.
This article is provided for information purposes only. Readers should consult their own professional advisers for specific advice tailored to their needs. Information contained in this article may be subject to change without notice.
