Stony Brook Farms in Amsterdam, New York, has a closed Holstein herd of 525 mature cows, 470 of which are milked three times per day – 9 a.m., 5 p.m. and 1 a.m. – in a double-10 parallel parlor. Although the parlor could readily be expanded to a double-14, this dairy farm has been operating at maximum capacity for four years and is not interested in milking more cows.

“We’re finished growing herd numbers. We’ve really reached that point of overcrowding,” says dairy farmer Paul Bargstedt, who owns the dairy with his wife, Ellen. Instead, they are striving to build a milking herd with the healthiest, most productive cows.

As they’ve paid less attention to growing the number of cows milking, they’ve paid exponentially more attention to maximizing milk production by focusing on cow health while strategically reducing replacement-rearing expenses.

James Salfer, a University of Minnesota Extension dairy educator, says margins are critical in dairy, particularly for dairies no longer in growth mode.

“You will need to be one of the best at maintaining margins for your size. This likely means high milk per cow along with low cost per hundredweight,” he says. “Your goal is to fill each stall with the most profitable cows.”

Milking three times per day, rather than twice, increases milk per cow by about 8 pounds per day and lowers somatic cell counts, Salfer says. When milking more frequently, ensuring cows are not without access to high-quality feed and comfortable resting space more than three hours per day can be a challenge.

The cows at Stony Brook Farms are high producers, with an average of 93 pounds of milk per cow per day, with some cows occasionally reaching more than 100 pounds. The herd’s milk averages a butterfat composition of 3.6 percent with protein at 3 percent.

Culling for profit

With the milking barn at maximum capacity, cows have to perform without incidence to avoid culling. The average age in the milking herd at Stony Brook Farms is four years, but they do have cows with greater longevity. If cows don’t have any health or reproductive issues, they get to stay, Bargstedt says.

Eliminating mastitis has been the first strategy to increase profitability while at maximum herd size. The farm has “no tolerance for mastitis,” Bargstedt says, which is reflected in their average somatic cell count of 76,000.

“Minimize management-caused culls by implementing a great transition program to minimize early lactation culls, an excellent milk quality program to minimize mastitis culls, an excellent hoof health program to minimize lameness culls and an excellent reproduction program to minimize reproductive culls,” Salfer says.

Culling and breeding go hand-in-hand. Culling removes cows with undesirable concerns, making way for healthier, more productive replacements. Breeding enhances the gene pool, selecting for the desired positive traits while eliminating the negatives.

Breeding and reproduction

Salfer recommends considering all of the health traits associated with keeping health care costs low when selecting sires. For some markets, breeding for components also makes sense.

“All bulls we use for artificial insemination are very high-component,” Bargstedt says, explaining that after four or five years of this selection, every heifer should by now be bred for enhanced component production.

Cows are both culled for lameness issues and bred to prevent them. Foot and leg conformation is given high priority when selecting genetics.

“It doesn’t matter how much milk they are going to give if they can’t get to the parlor,” Bargstedt says.

Mature cows are bred using timed A.I., and any mature cow open 120 days from their last calving is culled, as a prolonged dry period negatively impacts next-lactation milk.

“A very aggressive timed breeding program [a double Ovsynch program],” is utilized on mature cows, Bargstedt says, while heifers are synchronized in groups for breeding, using Synchsure.

Heifers

All heifers at Stony Brook Farms must be pregnant by 14 months. The average age at first calving is 21 months.

“If they are 24 months when they freshen, production decreases,” Bargstedt says, and they will never make as much milk as a calf freshening at 21 months.

With 200 to 225 heifers freshening each year, heifers with less production potential are culled.

“Don’t raise excess heifers just because you have them. This can be very costly,” Salfer says. “Target the number of replacements needed. Farms with good cow health should be able to achieve 30 or 35 percent cull rates and have a high-performing herd.”

Facilities

The milking herd enjoys an uncrowded, three-row freestall barn with an emphasis on comfort and ventilation. Waterbeds with sawdust, feed pushups more than 12 times per day and alleyways scraped clean during every milking keep cows comfortable and their time budgets intact.

“Farms that wish to maintain their current size need to carefully evaluate investment decisions and focus on investments with potentially high returns,” Salfer says. “Will the new investment improve labor efficiency or increase income?”

The Bargstedts’ heifer facility isn’t entirely new. Instead, the old barn has been retrofitted. Heifers are age-grouped in pens, with younger heifers entering the pens at one end, and groups are progressively moved down the barn as a new young group arrives.

Improvements to the group heifer facility include enhanced ventilation, reduced moisture concerns and increased efficiency in heifer handling. Rubber mats in all the pens – covered with sawdust for the three pens holding the youngest heifers – add to cow comfort. The addition of fans is the next investment.

A new four-pen group housing calf barn with automatic feeders has improved calf care. Aggressive culling of calves has helped with reducing costs. Second illnesses or poor weight gain are no longer tolerated, and those calves are treated and sold. The farm can almost recoup a cull’s rearing costs using this strategy, Bargstedt says.  

Tamara Scully, a freelance writer based in northwestern New Jersey, specializes in agricultural and food system topics.