Table 3. Annual Rates of Culling of Dairy Cows 

 in New England and New Hampshire, 1945-54^ 



Year 



1945 

 1946 

 1947 

 1948 

 1949 

 1950 

 1951 

 1952 

 1953 

 1954 



^Interstate Movement of Dairy Cattle, 11 Northeastern States, Agricultural Marketing Service, U. S. 

 Department of Agriculture, 1916-1955. 



Considerations Involved in Appraising the 

 Replacement Problem 



Stated briefly, in considering his replacement problem, a dairyman must 

 decide what proportion of his farm resources to devote to the production 

 of dairy replacements and what proportion to the production of milk. Hay 

 can usually be fed to either cows or young stock. Most pasture is equally 

 suited to grazing by cows or young stock. Labor can be utilized in taking 

 care of either cows or young stock. In other words, the dairyman must 

 decide how he can best use his feed, building space, labor, and other pro- 

 duction facilities in view of the costs of these production facilities and the 

 prices he receives for his products. 



Location of the individual farm affects culling and replacement prac- 

 tices to some extent. In general, farms that are near markets where prices 

 for milk are high, as in southern New England, tend to raise few replace- 

 ments and concentrate resources on production of milk. Farms farther from 

 markets where prices of milk are less favorable tend to have a higher pro- 

 portion of young stock to milking cows. But, aside from some differences 

 that result from location with respect to market, the problem of deciding 

 how to use production resources must be solved within the framework of the 

 individual farm situation. 



An economic evaluation of the use of production resources on a dairy 

 farm with respect to the number of herd replacements that should be 

 raised or bought must take into account several common beliefs. It is some- 

 times argued that a program of raising all replacements for the dairy herd 

 is better than buying some or all replacements because it is difficult to 

 build a high-producing herd with purchased replacements. The risk of 

 getting brucellosis, mastitis, or other diseases in the herd is believed to 

 be much greater with purchased cows. It is often said that a farmer's in- 

 vestment in labor and feed in raising a replacement is less than the price 

 he would pay for the same heifer. It is also felt that with good manage- 



11 



