This is the first part of a two-part report on the “Organic Dairy Heifer Replacement Study” The project sought to work with fifteen organic dairies across New York to collect the true cost of raising a dairy heifer replacement for the milking herd on an organic dairy farm. The study also looks at factors influencing the successful rearing of healthy calves. A grant from the Northeast Dairy Business Innovation Center serving 11 states from offices at the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets funded this study. The complete report will be released this fall.
The project used Cornell University’s PRO-DAIRY’s “Dairy Replacement Analysis”. By using this spreadsheet for data collection the results could be compared to the cost of raising conventional dairy heifers. Data for conventional dairies was taken from the Cornell Dairy Replacement Program: Cost & Analysis Report of Summer 2019 costs from that study were adjusted for 3 percent inflation to allow current comparison.
Raising replacement heifers is the second highest cost after forage and feed costs on a dairy. A report presented at California Polytechnic State University indicated that it has been repeatedly shown that on conventional dairy farms the cost of raising replacement heifers takes 15 to 20 percent of total milk production costs. A dairy enterprise such as raising replacements which requires a significant portion of a dairy’s total costs was the reasoning behind the study. I worked with Ashley Pierce to collect data from fifteen organic dairies. The data was collected from the different groups of heifers on the farm so that cost and growth rates could be collected and shown on a per day basis. The data included costs for: feed, labor, bedding, healthcare, manure handling, and others. Weights of the animals were also collected at different stages to see how the growth rates compared to other farms and targeted growth rates for the breeds.
Getting a Good Start is Critical
The study looked at factors that influence the opportunity to raise quality replacement heifers. Calves born on any type of dairy farm need a good start. It doesn’t matter if a calf is born on a conventional or organic dairy, pre-weaned calves are at the highest risk of dying. Getting colostrum from the mother or another fresh cow into newborn calves in the first 24 hours of life is most important to provide antibodies.
Organic production rules allow for the use of vitamins and vaccines as needed. The farms in our study group used an array of oral vaccines to protect against E-coli, rotavirus, and coronavirus; nasal vaccines for IBR (infectious bovine rhinotracheitis) and PI-3 (parainfluenza type 3), and vitamins A, D, E and selenium to prevent deficiencies. A list of alternative treatments used as preventative measures is included in the final project report.
The major difference in management between the two production regimes was the length of time a calf remained on milk until weaned. The conventionally-raised heifer study group weaned calves at six to eight weeks. The organic farm calves were kept on milk between 12 to 17 weeks; on one grass-fed dairy, calves were with a nurse cow for 24 weeks.
The main reason for the length of time that calves remained on milk was to reduce the chances of scours caused by E. coli, salmonella, or coccidia. The use of ionophores by conventional farms to treat coccidiosis offers a dual advantage in that this type of antibiotic acts as a biocide that prevents coccidiosis and simultaneously alters the rumen to increase the growth of the calf. Organic farms have found keeping calves on milk (not milk replacer) longer allows the calf to build natural immunity to coccidia.
The time period when a calf is on milk is the highest cost of a calf’s birth-to-one-year life under both organic and conventional regimes, due to the cost of the milk overfeed (forages and grain) and labor associated with the individual handling of the calves compared to weaned calves in group housing. This cost is exacerbated under organic management because the length of time fed is twice or three times as long and the revenue loss of the dam’s organic milk kept out of the milking stream is two to three times more.
Heifer Nutrition Affects Lifetime Production
Studies have shown that 22% of variation in first-lactation milk yield is due to a high pre-weaning growth rate in the first 49 days of age. Animal Science Professor Michael Van Amburgh, Ph.D. and colleagues in the Cornell University Department of Animal Science have shown that early heifer nutrition will affect a cow’s lifetime production. Proper heifer development begins with calf management that feeds adequate amounts of protein. Van Amburgh’s research indicates that maintaining 26 to 28 percent protein fed daily can influence calf growth by 1 to 2 pounds per day. Every pound of average daily gain can mean an approximate addition of 1,500 pounds of milk in her first lactation, and benefits subsequent lactations as well.
Milk from the dam provides the calf about 26% protein. Starter feed may provide as little as 18% protein. Calf managers need to be alert when switching calves to starter feed as a decrease in protein can limit calf growth and impact rumen development.
The study showed that organic dairies had unique challenges and opportunities with their heifers, e.g.,
- the high cost of organic grain tends to suppress the protein levels fed to replacements;
- organic standards forbidding the use of many drugs conventionally used to treat calfhood illness;
the period of individual care of organically raised calves, rather than in conventional group housing, double or triple that of conventional dairy herds, increasing costs; and, at a year old, the organically-raised replacement animal utilizing grazing was able to reduce labor and feed cost below that of the conventionally raised heifers.
The Chart shows the difference in cost for feed and labor between conventionally raised heifers vs organically raised heifers during their two years of growth.
Part two of this report will look at the specific costs and the development of benchmarks for other farms to compare their costs. An alternative healthcare manual will be also made available in the second part of the report. It was developed, in part, by the farmers in this study and will give treatments to assist organic dairy farmers in dealing with a number of medical ailments in their heifers and other animals on the farm.