Please outline & identify 3 management strategies the farmer used in achieving success in dairy farming?

Question

Please outline & identify 3 management strategies the farmer used in achieving success in dairy farming?

Answer 1

Getting one calf per year from a cow.

Keeping feed costs a minimum.

Efficient milking practices.

These answers can be elaborated to many number of pages.And there are more strategies.

Answer 2

1 Keeping feed costs low

2 Keeping machinery, equipment and labor costs low

3 Having cows that are fertile and feed effecient.

The most profitable dairy farms around are seasonal, grass based dairies.  They calve in spring when the grass is coming on and are dried up around Christmas.  They are dry during the coldest time when feed inputs are the highest.  Rotational grazing maximizes forage nutrition and forage production.  

Milking in warmer weather means low cost, metal roofed pole barns can be used for milking.  Since most of the cows feed inputs are growing forages, the need for forage harvesters, silos, tractors, manure spreaders, etc, etc are greatly reduced.

The animals that do best in forage based seasonal daries are small Jersey crosses with Gurensey or Ayrshire that weight 800-1000 pounds.  Big 1400 pound Holstiens nearly starve to death on forage alone.  Milk production per animal averages 12,000-14,000 pounds per year.  Yes, a far cry from 24,000-30,000 pound Holstiens, but those big old gals can polish off a bushel of more of grain a day.

Check the internet for the University of Missouri's Southwest Center dairy farm.  They make more money feeding Jerseys grass than conventional operators in the area do pouring the grain to humongous Holstiens.  Their feed cost are tremendously lower, their machinery costs are lower and the capital investment per animal is a fraction of what conventional operators have.  

The secret to making money in agriculture isn't in generating large amounts of money, but in saving money.  If you have to generate $10 gross to make $1 profit, saving $1 equates to $10 you don't have to generate.  That's why grass based seasonal dairies are more profitable.

Answer 3

[edit] The milking process

The milking process is the collection of tasks specifically devoted to extracting milk from an animal (rather than the broader field of dairy animal husbandry). This process may be broken down into several sub-tasks: collecting animals before milking, routing animals into the parlour, inspection and cleaning of teats, attachment of milking equipment to teats, extraction of milk, removal of milking equipment, routing of animals out of the parlour.

[edit] Milking schedules

Maintaining milk yield during the lactation period (approximately 300 days) requires consistent milking intervals, usually twice daily and with maximum time spacing between milkings. In fact all activities must be scheduled around the milking process on the dairy farm. Such a milking routine imposes restrictions on time management and personal life of an individual farmer, as the farmer is committed to milking in the early morning and in the evening for seven days a week regardless of personal health, family responsibilities or social schedule. This time restriction is exacerbated for lone farmers and farm families if extra labour cannot easily or economically be obtained, and is a factor in the decline in small-scale dairy farming. Techniques such as once-a-day milking and voluntary milking (see below) have been investigated to reduce these time constraints.

[edit] Automation in milking

To alleviate the labour involved in milking, much of the milking process has been automated: many farmers use semi-automatic or automatic cow traffic control (powered gates, etc.), the milking machine has entirely automated milk extraction, and automatic cluster removal is available to remove milking equipment after milking. Automatic teat spraying systems are available, however there is some debate over the cleaning effectiveness of these.

The final manual labour tasks remaining in the milking process were cleaning and inspection of teats and attachment of milking equipment (milking cups) to teats. Automatic cleaning and attachment of milking cups is a complex task, requiring accurate detection of teat position and a dextrous mechanical manipulator. These tasks have been automated successfully in the voluntary milking system.

[edit] Voluntary Milking Systems (VMS)



Fig. 1. Typical VMS LayoutSince the 1970s, much research effort has been expended in investigating methods to alleviate time management constraints in conventional dairy farming, culminating in the development of the automated voluntary milking system (VMS).

Voluntary milking allows the cow to decide its own milking time and interval, rather than being milked as part of a group at set milking times. VMS requires complete automation of the milking process, as the cow may elect to be milked at any time during a 24 hour period. A typical VMS layout is shown in Fig. 1. The milking unit comprises a milking machine, a teat position sensor, a robotic arm for automatic teat-cup application and removal and a gate system for controlling cow traffic. The cows are permanently housed in a barn, and spend most of their time resting or feeding in the loose-stall area.

When the cow elects to attend the milking unit (due to conditioned habit or udder fullness), a cow ID sensor reads an identification tag on the cow and passes the cow ID to the control system. If the cow has been milked too recently, the automatic gate system routes the cow past the unit. If the cow may be milked, the cow is routed into the milking unit, where automatic teat cleaning, milking cup application and milking takes place. As an incentive to attend the milking unit, concentrated feedstuffs may be fed to the cow in the milking unit, and the barn may be arranged such that access to the main feeding area can only be obtained by passing the milking unit.

The innovative core of the VMS system is the robotic manipulator in the milking unit. This robotic arm automates the tasks of teat cleaning and milking attachment and removes the final elements of manual labour from the milking process. Careful design of the robot arm and associated sensors and controls allows robust unsupervised performance, such that the farmer is only required to attend the cows for condition inspection and when a cow has not attended for milking.

Typical capacity for a VMS is 60-70 cows per milking unit. VMS usually achieve milking frequencies between 2 and 3 times per day, so a single milking unit handling 60 cows and milking each cow 3 times per day has a capacity of 7.5 cows/h. This low capacity is convenient for lower-cost design of the robot arm and associated control system, as a window of several minutes is available for each cow and high-speed operation is not required.

VMS units have been available commercially since the early 1990s, and have proved relatively successful in implementing the voluntary milking method. In fact, VMS is the only automatic milking system (AMS) available to farmers. The terms AMS or “robotic milking” (RMS) are universally used to describe the VMS systems by the various manufacturers and the dairy industry press, however it can be seen that VMS is a specialised subset of AMS.

[edit] Advantages

Elimination of labour. The farmer is freed from the milking process and associated rigid schedule, and labour is devoted to supervision of animals, feeding, etc.

Increased milking frequency. Milking frequency may increase to three times per day, however typically 2.5 times per day is achieved. This may result in less stress on the udder and increased comfort for the cow, as on average less milk is stored. Higher frequency milking increases milk yield per cow, however much of this increase is water rather than solids.

Perceived lower stress environment. There is a perception that elective milking schedules reduce cow stress. An objective study found no decrease in stress between automatic and conventional milking.

Herd Management. The use of computer control allows greater scope for data collection. Such data allows the farmer to improve management through analysis of trends in the herd, for example response of milk production to changes in feedstuffs. Individual cow histories may also be examined, and alerts set to warn the farmer of unusual changes indicating illness or injury. Information gathering provides added value for AMS, however correct interpretation and use of such information is highly dependent on the skills of the user.

[edit] Disadvantages

High initial cost. VMS systems cost approximately €120,000 per milking unit (presuming barn space is already available for loose-stall housing). This does not compare favorably with conventional parlours, where a much higher milking capacity may be obtained for similar or lower cost.

Low return on investment. The low capacity of VMS systems means that economy of scale cannot be used to offset the high capital investment. While large installations exist, VMS herds beyond 300 cows are rare. A VMS takes longer to pay for itself than a conventional parlour.

Increased complexity. While complexity of equipment is a necessary part of technological advancement, the increased complexity of the VMS milking unit over conventional systems reduces the ability of the farmer to perform repairs, increasing reliance on manufacturer maintenance services and possibly increasing operating costs. The farmer is exposed in the event of total system failure, relying on prompt response from the service provider. If service is not immediately available the farmer must milk the herd with a single milking unit or use a redundant backup parlour. In practice VMS systems have proved robust and manufacturers provide good service networks, but the risk remains present.

Difficult to apply in pasture systems. VM works best in zero-grazing systems, in which the cow is housed indoors for most of the lactation period. Zero-grazing suits areas (e.g. the Netherlands) where land is at a premium, as maximum land can be devoted to feed production which is then collected by the farmer and brought to the animals in the barn. In pasture systems, as used in most of the world, cows graze in fields and are required to walk to the milking parlour. It has been found that cows tend not to attend the milking unit if the distance to walk is too great.

Lower milk quality. Somatic cell count (SCC)and Plate loop count (PLC) are, respectively, measurements of the quantity of white blood cells and total number of bacteria present in a milk sample. A high SCC indicates reduced udder health (as the immune system fights some infection) and implies lower milk quality. Machine milking of any kind increases SCC, however VMS herds consistently show higher SCCs than conventionally milked herds. A high PLC indicates bacterial contamination, usually through poor sanitation or cooling and similarly implies low milk quality. High PLC in VMS may be attributed to the continuous use of milking lines (rather than twice a day in conventional systems), which reduces the time window for cleaning, and the incremental addition of milk to the bulk milk tank which may not cool efficiently at low milk levels.

Possible increase in stress for some cows. Cows are social animals, and it has been found that due to dominance of some cows, others will be forced to milk only at night. Such behaviour is inconsistent with the perception that VM reduces stress by allowing "free choice" of milking time.

Decreased contact between farmer and herd. Effective animal husbandry requires that the farmer be fully aware of herd condition. In conventional milking, the cows are observed before milking equipment is attached, and ill or injured cows can be earmarked for attention. Automatic milking removes the farmer from such close contact with the animal, with the possibility that illness may go unnoticed for longer periods and both milk quality and cow welfare suffer. In practice, m

Answer 4

1. Good animals

2. Good feed

3. Good managements

1.) Selection of milch animals is the first key to success. Select the animals as per the norms given in the books.

2.) Second key is the feed, if your animal is good; it will require good food too to accomplish the job of producing expected quata of milk. If feed is substandard you are actually ruining a good animal.

3.) Pay good attention to hygiene of the animal as well as it's surroundings. Try to eliminate chances of animal falling sick. This will not only affect milk production, it will (may) reduce the potential of the animal forever! Take care - is the third key