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Effect of Various Levels of Grain Feeding

Economic Effects of High-Level Grain Feeding¹

Department of Agricultural Economics, Michigan State University, East Lansing

ABSTRACT

The most profitable levels of grain feeding, as measured by returns above cost of feed, were at rates 1,100 to 1,600 lb higher for the high than the low response cows. Differences were the greatest when milk-feed price ratios were least favorable.

The economic optima in grain feeding were attained at nearly the same levels for the Western and Pacific and the Midwestern areas when normal hay-grain price relationships existed, and milk was priced at $5 and $4 per hundredweight, respectively, for the two areas. These levels of grain feeding were at 5,300 lb and 5,200 lb for high response cows and 4,200 lb and 4,300 lb for low response cows, respectively, for the two areas. With more recent higher hay prices in the Western and Pacific area, it became profitable to feed 1,000 lb extra grain to high response cows and 600 lb extra grain to the lower response cows. Increased hay prices for localized areas in the Midwest resulted in the profitability of feeding 700 lb and 600 lb more grain, respectively, for the high and low response cows.

Reducing the average price received for milk in the Western and Pacific area from $5 to $4.25 per hundredweight, but with no change in feed prices, suggested a reduction in level of grain feeding by 1,000 lb for high response cows and 600 lb for low response cows. For the Midwestern area, a change from a blend price of $4 to a maunfacturing price of $2.75 per hundredweight, reduced the most profitable feeding rate by 1,100 lb for high response cows and by 1,550 lb for low response cows.

A knowledge of the magnitude of response of individual cows to variable quantities of grain and milk-feed price relationships can form the basis for economical feeding programs. Dairymen can and have in the past made reasonably good adjustments to milk-feed price relationships in their market areas. A 1960 study (7) showed a range of from 1,800 lb to 5,500 lb grain fed per cow for six milk production areas of California. The low rate was associated with a Northern low-milk price area distant from metropolitan markets. The high level was for the metropolitan Los Angeles area for which a high percentage of milk is contracted at Class I prices.

There are some indications that some dairymen are feeding grain at uneconomical levels. A 1963 DHIA special tabulation for Michigan showed no difference in returns over cost of feed for Holstein herds fed 4,500 to 5,999 lb grain per cow. Returns were reduced for cows fed more than 6,000 lb grain (10).

The lack of precise information on production responses of individual cows and the kind of feeding adjustments most profitable during different months of the lactation period makes it necessary for dairymen to do some experimenting and to use judgment in feeding grain to dairy cows.

¹ Published with the approval of the Director of Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station as Journal article No. 3421.