To continue to milk or not to milk that may very well become the question?

Inevitably a time will come when grass runs out but before we consider the economics of continuing to milk, we must firstly recognise that it will cost the same to feed a cow silage whether shes milking or not.

It is only by continuing to produce milk that she will cover the cost of keeping herself and put some cashflow into your pocket.

A dry cow eating 12kg DM grass silage is costing c. €3 per day to keep. That’s €4200 for a 100-cow herd every fortnight.

Cow’s milk yield is declining but milk value is very good, being conservative on both and assuming 14ltrs milk yield per day across a 2-week period with a milk price of 60c/ltrs, each cow in you herd will produce €8.40 of milk daily or €11.5k of milk revenue for a 100 cow herd.

But revenue does not equal margin, and decisions to produce should only every be driven by margin.

Depending on the mix of grass silage and concentrates your feeding your cows they will be costing c. €4.75 a day to feed, leaving €5000 of margin over feed costs for a fortnight.  €5000 of margin over €4200 of expenditure is c.€9000 of a swing.   An extra fortnight of milk is of great value.