Larry F. Tranel

Economics of Dairy Manure Management in Iowa

Dairy producers have many duties to carry out in their dairy operations, one of which is storing, handling and applying manure. Manure handling ends up being a significant cost on most dairies even when considering the value of the nutrients in the manure. Seldom do producers consider their costs of handling and applying manure on a per hundredweight of milk sold basis like they do with many of their other costs.

Low Cost Milking Parlors—Producer Surveys

Labor Efficiency Labor efficiency is a primary goal when installing a LCP. On average, producers milked 54.3% more cows while decreasing milking labor by 27.3%. Time spent handling manure decreased 32.5% due to skid steer scraping versus daily hauling with a barn cleaner. Feeding labor, in the same respect, decreased 17.6%. Heat detection labor increased 43.8% with the LCP. Overall, labor efficiency was a tremendous savings at 2.44 hours per day valued at

Hydroponic Fodder Systems for Dairy Cattle

21.96 per day or

Automatic Milking Systems (AMS)—Producer Surveys

8,015 per year.