Cargill Launches New Online Dairy Calculator

Dairy farmers can now quickly and conveniently analyze their milk component efficiency using a new online calculator from Cargill that can be accessed at www.cargilldairydreams.com/calculator.

 

 

“At its core, component efficiency is a real measure of dairy herd efficiency. Dairy farmers can monitor it to see how well their cows are converting pounds of feed into pounds of milk components,” says Mike Messman, Ph.D., Dairy Strategic Technology Leader, Cargill. “To do the calculation by hand requires a few mathematical steps so we wanted to simplify the process and ensure all dairy farmers could calculate this for themselves at any time.”

Most of the U.S. dairy industry is paid each month based on the pounds of milkfat and protein components shipped from the dairy. At the same time, feed costs are often one of the highest variable expenses for a dairy herd, so calculating component efficiency gives a good snapshot of how efficiently the cows are converting valuable feed into valuable milk components.

To calculate it online, a dairy farmer simply inputs their pounds of milk production, fat and protein percent, and dry matter intake – the site does not collect any personal information – and the calculator does the work of quickly computing their efficiency. In addition to their efficiency rate the tool also provides an analysis to help producers understand where they stand, and how much room they have to improve.

“When dairy farmers are able to improve their component efficiency, they can have a profitable impact on their bottom line,” adds Messman, “And that’s why we want to help dairies easily measure where they are today and plan how they can improve their component efficiency moving forward.”

 

 

Access Cargill’s new component efficiency calculator, and learn more about managing component efficiency, by visiting www.cargilldairydreams.com/calculator on your desktop or mobile device