186 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



ECONOMICAL MILK PRODUCTION 



Charles Foss, Freeport, Illinois 



Any one engaged in milking cows on a commercial 

 scale does so with the intention of making money at the 

 dairy business. No one wants to keep cows at a loss or 

 for pleasure. It is true, however, that not every one en- 

 gaged in dairying is making money at it. 



There are two ways in which the farmer can market 

 the crops he grows on his farm. One way is to sell them 

 for cash and the other way is to feed them to livestock. 

 To the man who is engaged in dairying, the cow is the 

 market to which he sells his crops. 



The price he will receive for his crops he grows on 

 his farm will depend on the price he will receive for his 

 milk or butter fat, and upon the ability of the cow to con- 

 vert the feed he grows on his farm into milk and butter 

 fat economically. The efficient cow is an important factor 

 in economical milk production. There are two Ways to 

 increase the profits in the dairy business. One is to get 

 an increased price for our dairy products and the other 

 is to decrease the cost of production. Generally speaking, 

 dairymen do not control the price they get for their milk 

 and butter fat, but they can control the cost of production 

 so far as feed and care and efficiency of the dairy cow 

 is concerned. 



The Department of Dairy Husbandry of the Univer- 

 sity of Illinois has found from data secured from cost ac- 

 counting records kept on farms in the Chicago milk dis- 

 trict, that 44 pounds of grain, 188 pounds of silage, 50 

 pounds of hay, 39 pounds of bedding and 2.42 hours of 

 man labor enter into the average cost of producing one 

 hundred pounds of milk. The cost accounting records 

 from which this data was secured represented approxi- 

 mately one thousand cows and is the average cost of pro- 



