EFFICIENCY 



IN THE 



DAIRY BARN 



by Harry C. Woodworth 



Professor of Agricultural Econovtics 



and 



Kenneth S. Morrow 



Professor of Dairy Husbandry 



I Ini-roduction 



Objective 



This study was initiated to explore 

 the possibilities of increasing the ef- 

 fectiveness of labor in doing chore 

 work in dairy barns. There was evi- 

 dence from previous studies* that 

 chore work accounted for a large 

 proportion of the total work hours. 

 This large labor requirement tended 

 to be a barrier or bottleneck in limit- 

 ing total output of the farm. The 

 major objective was to eliminate or 

 lower these barriers to larger produc- 

 tion by developing better practices, 

 thus raising the efficiency of the en- 

 tire dairy farm enterprise. It was 

 expected that greater efficiency in do- 

 ing cei'tain chores would enable the 

 operator to readjust his farm or- 

 ganization, increase the total output 

 per man, and raise his net income. 



Importance of Chore Efficiency 



The management of specialized 

 dairy farms has become very com- 

 plex. Operators faced with high 



* UNH Agricultural Experiment Station 

 Bulletin 275 (1933), Efficiency Studies in 

 Dairy Farming by H. C. Woodworth, C. W. 

 Harris, Jr., and Emil Rauchenstein. 



UNH Agricultural Experiment Station 

 Bulletin 322 (1940), Farm Organization and 

 Management in the Colebrook Area, by H. C. 

 Woodworth and Arna Hangas. 



In 1931 and 1932, an average of 132 hours 

 per cow were spent on dairy chores and 25 

 hours directly on producing the roughage 

 consumed per cow. Approximately 60 per 

 cent of the time actually devoted to operat- 

 ing the farm was spent in doing dairy chores. 



wage rates and a scarcity of avail- 

 able short period labor have been 

 forced to plan their enterprises 

 around their available regular labor. 

 Due to the varying seasonal labor re- 

 quirements for both crops and dairy 

 barn chores, the effective allocation of 

 the available labor and its efficient use 

 throughout the year is difficult but 

 very important. Efficient chore work 

 is an important segment in the or- 

 ganization of the farm as a whole. 

 Daily chores account for over half the 

 total man days on specialized dairy 

 farms. Where they are done effi- 

 ciently, there is more time available 

 for field work. 



Balance of Operations 



On specialized dairy farms in New 

 Hampshire, the field work is concen- 

 trated on the production of roughage 

 for the dairy herd. There is a man- 

 agement problem of balancing the size 

 of the herd with the amount of 

 roughage available and also of equal- 

 izing the labor load to some extent be- 

 tween the seasons of roughage pro- 

 duction and the period of winter 

 chores. The labor that produces the 

 roughage usually must do the work 

 on the livestock that consumes the 

 roughage. Improvements in chore 

 practices have not kept pace with 

 progress in field crop production and 

 this lag tends to further unbalance 



