Replacement strategies to maximise profiltability in dairying.

Abstract

The overall objective of this project was to develop a dynamic model which would determine the optimum replacement rates for dairy herds under an Irish system of production. A model was designed and applied to the Irish dairy replacement problem, which included in the decision making process production, fertility, calving interval, seasonality, month of calving and various economic factors. The output from the Hierarchic model is a series of rankings. The dynamic programming approach can enable one to inform a farmer which cows in the herd should be replaced, on the basis that a replacement heifer( and its future successors) are expected to be more profitable than the current cow. The optimum replacement rate was 17.8% from this analysis.