PRODUCTION INDICIES FOR EVALUATING PRODUCTION EFFICIENCY OF COWS AND FARMS IN DAIRY HERD HEALTH MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS

Abstract

The goal of this study was to generate production indicies for evaluating cow and farm production efficiency. The milk yields from cows on 10 farms in the Khonkaen province were recorded. The data were transformed into a value depicting standard milk production and subsequently calculated to show the average standard milk production of each farm and an average for all farms. These data were used to calculate 2 production
indecies: 1) a cow production index, calculated by dividing the cow standard milk production figure with the average standard milk production for the farm, and 2) a herd production index, calculated by dividing the average farm production level with the average of all farms. Means and standard error means of the 3 variables: days in
milk, daily milk yield and standard milk yield, were 135.2±9.6 days, 12.4±0.4 kg and 16.3±0.5 kg, respectively. Using a 10% culling rate, it was decided to cull cows because of low milk production when they had a production index of less than 0.6. For evaluating farm efficiency, a farm with a farm production index less than 1, indicated
that the farm had a production level less than the average of the whole group. Therefore, the farm should modify its farm management program to improve it’s production efficiency. In conclusion, these indicies are easy to use and can help farmers make relevant decisions for culling low production cows and so improve their production
management.