Thought you might be interested in just a few dairy related facts about our farm.
For the month of October we had 4 sets of twins born. One set was bulls (boys) the other three were heifers (girls). 38 heifers and 36 bulls were also born that month. So, that is a total of 82 calves which averages 2.65 per day. The most born on one day was 6 single births. We also had 4 singles and one set of twins on one day.
As an average for four weeks in October, I think the dates were the 4th through the 31st we had a total of 775.5 cows on the property – that is full grown cows. We also have cattle from birth to giving birth on our farm and have some heifers (a heifer is any bovine animal that has not had a calf yet) cared for at two other farms. We averaged 657.5 cows that were being milked.
There were 26 first time mamas. 47 girls were dried up. That means we quit milking them in preparation for them to have their next calf.
We culled (sold) 23 cows. They are sold because they are not producing up to par. You gotta perform if you want to stick around here.
We get paid per hundred pounds of milk. For the month of October 2007 the price of milk was $22.35 per hundred weight = $1.92 per gallon. The month of October, 2008, price per hundred weight was $18.29 = $1.57 per gallon. For the month of October, this year, 2009 it was $14.82 = $1.27 per gallon. Have you noticed the price changing that much for you?
