Introduction. Management support to dairy farmers can best be offered within the frame work of Herd Health and. Production Management (HHPM) services that ...
Proceedings, The 15th Congress of FAVA FAVA -OIE Joint Symposium on Emerging Diseases
27-30 October
Bangkok, Thailand
Herd Health and Production Management Service: Its Effects on Increased Dairy-Farm Incomes W. Suriyasathaporn*, T. Singhla Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai Province, 50100 Thailand *Corresponding author Keywords: Dairy farm incomes, Herd health and production management service concentrates according to their milk production, and the vast majority of the cows were crossbred Holstein-Friesian. Veterinarians and paraveterinarians, the latter were the animal health and reproduction volunteers who were trained by Department of Livestock Development, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Thailand, from either private sectors or the Satellite Animal Hospital, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Chiang Mai University, were available on call as health and reproductive consultants in this area. Experimental Design: Farms were randomly assigned into control and treatment farm groups by the cooperative manager. The treatment farms were participated in HHPM program serviced by Department of Ruminant Clinic, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Chiang Mai University. The program was separated into 2 phases including 1) beginning phase, between November’ 07 to January’ 08, as the period that the farm performances were based on the previous management, and 2) following phase, between February’08 to April’ 08, the farm performances were resulted from the HHPM program. Herd Health and Production Management Program: In HHPM services, the examination of the whole enterprise or of the various operational management functions, including economic perspective, production, reproduction, milk quality and mastitis control program, health were make use of a systematic approach. A HHPM protocol consists of 4 main components: defining objectives, execution by farmers, decision making based on interpretation of collected information, and follow up. Milk samples from all cows were collected once a month for measurement of somatic cell counts (SCC) to evaluate the problem on milk quality and mastitis control program. Amounts of daily milk production on a cow level were obtained from farmers once a month. A veterinarian visited the HHPM farms at least once a month as follow up to collect and report data on reproduction, health and production for decision making. All data were analyzed by computer software, Herd Health Management Program for Small Holder Dairy Farms (7). In case of having a problem of performance, the farmers were supervised by the veterinarian based on a problem solving protocol (for detailed see Suriyasathaporn, 2006 (6) modified from Faust 1993 (2).
Introduction Management support to dairy farmers can best be offered within the frame work of Herd Health and Production Management (HHPM) services that are aimed at optimizing animal health and production (1). The HHPM service is a complex of integrated veterinary and animal husbandry activities, centered on regularly planned farm visits, and based on a protocol approach to operational farm management functions (1). There are some important differences between HHPM services and the traditional services of veterinary medicine, which are focused solely on the clinically diseased animal. These differences include a comprehensive concern for the herd and the entire farm enterprise, and the importance of general and herd-specific information needed for decision making in daily management. HHPM services are ultimately meant to improve farm income and\or to reduce costs (3). Therefore, disease, health, reproduction, and production are regarded in an economic perspective. In Thailand, HHPM programs were introduced by many faculties of veterinary medicine in Thailand in a form of a reproductive herd health program (RHH), a partly HHPM with planned effort by a dairy producer and veterinarian to maximize reproductive efficiency and to minimize reproductive diseases and problems. The RHH program was beneficial to small dairy herd in term of improving reproductive efficiency by increasing ratio of inseminated and pregnant cows at 90 days and 120 days postpartum (4). However, there is limited information on the advantages of HHPM program for small-holder dairy farms on economical aspects. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to evaluate the effects of HHPM program on dairy farm incomes. Materials and Methods Farm Selection: Ninety-four farms from the Mae-On Dairy Cooperative were in the study. Based on farm levels, data of incomes from milk sold, feed expenses usually from concentrates , milk production, bulk tank somatic cell counts (BMSCC), and numbers of cows separated into milking cows, dry cows, heifers, and calves between November’ 07 to April’ 08 were collected. All farms were smallholder dairy farms with less than 20 milking cows per farm and using budget-type milking machines with an average of 8 cows/machine set. Most cows were fed post-harvest corn stem and staw ad lib, and
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Proceedings, The 15th Congress of FAVA FAVA -OIE Joint Symposium on Emerging Diseases
27-30 October
Bangkok, Thailand
Statistical Analysis: Dairy farm incomes per milking cow (net income), as a dependent variable, were defined by the differences of incomes from milk sold and feed expenses, and the result was divided by numbers of milking cows. To control the inexplicable farm performance data, the income data with lower than 5th percentile and higher than 95th percentile were excluded from analysis. A repeated measure analysis, using a multiple linear mixed model (Mixed Procedure, SAS 9.0:(5)), was used to evaluate the effect of HHPM on the farm incomes. Independent variables were HHPM, and Phase (beginning, following). Based on the restriction of the HHPM protocol, the HHPM variable were separated into three groups as non-HHPM (NON), high restriction to HHPM protocol (HIGH) in which farmers followed the protocol (at least 80% during the period of HHPM program and the lest was classified as mild restriction (MILD). To evaluate mastitis problem on incomes, averages of somatic cell score (SCS) calculated by using the formula: 3+log2(BMSCC/100,000) was also included as a independent variable. Least square means were calculated to compare between groups. A level of significance was defined at 0.05. Results and Discussion Data description: Numbers of farms in HHPM groups are shown in Table 1. The net income ranged from 2,583 to 3,232 baht/cow/month. An averaged milk yields of HIGH was highest, but the net income was less than MILD at the beginning phase. At beginning phase, the MILD farms had the highest net income/cow and lowest averaged somatic cell score in compare to NON and HIGH. The % of feed cost: income from milk ranged between 34.2-37.9% and was higher in beginning phase compared to following phase. A correlation between net income and SCS was shown by box and whiskers plots (Figure 1), indicating that increased net income was resulted from decreased SCS.
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Table 1 Data description of farm performance separated into 3 groups as non-HHPM (NON), mild restriction to HHPM protocol (MILD), and high restriction to HHPM protocol (HIGH). Phase1 Numbers of farms
NON
MILD
HIGH
59
14
21
Number of cows (heads/farm)
Begin
10.1
12.7
10.7
Follow
10.1
14.1
11.7
Income from milk (baht/farm/month)
Begin
41,021
56,949
51,660
Follow
41,832
68,382
61,485
Feed cost (baht/farm/month)
Begin
14,653
19,704
19,603
Follow
%Feed cost: Income from milk
Begin
14,795 35.7
23,364 34.6
22,498 37.9
Follow
35.4
34.2
36.6
Begin
2,505
2,872
2,583
Follow Begin
2,583 310.3
3,045 338.7
3,232 363.3
Follow
314.3
349.6
385.4
4.0
3.5
3.7
3.8
3.1
Net Income/cow2 (baht/cow/month) Milk yield (kg/cow/month) Averaged somatic cell score3
Begin
3.5 Follow The program was separated into: beginning phase (Nov 07-Jan 08) and following phase (Feb 08-Apr 08). 2 A net income/cow was defined by: (income from milk minus feed cost)/number of cows. 3 Averaged somatic cell scores were from: the averages of integral of (3+log2(BMSCC/100,000)). HHPM = herd health and production management. 1
Effects of HHPM, period, and SCS on Net income: Based on statistical analysis, least square means of the net income HHPM groups separated into periods were shown in Figure 2. In general, averages of net income from MILD and HIGH were higher than NON. However, only HIGH showed a difference between beginning phase and following phase (p < 0.05. Approximately 275 bath/cow/month of net income was increased by participating in HPPM program with high restriction to HPPM protocol. SCS was also negative correlated to net income (p = 0.02). Increasing of a score of SCC or two times of BMSCC caused decreases of net income approximately 106 baht/cow/month.
Net Income/cow (baht/cow/month)
Proceedings, The 15th Congress of FAVA FAVA -OIE Joint Symposium on Emerging Diseases
27-30 October
Bangkok, Thailand
Acknowledgement This study was supported by the grant from National Research Council of Thailand.
4200 3600 3000
References 1. Brand et al., 1996. Herd Health and Production Management in Dairy Practice 1-14. 2. Faust and Knapp, 1993. DHI Profit Template. Wisconsin DHI Cooperative: Dairy Herd Improvement. 3. Nelson and Redlus, 1989. Vet Clin Nth Am: Food Animal Practice 5: 517-552. 4. Punyapornwithaya et al., 2006. Chiang Mai Vet J 4: 107-115. 5. SAS, 1997. SAS/STAT Software: Changes and Enhancements through Release 6.12. 6. Suriyasathaporn, 2006. Herd Health and Production Management in Dairy Cattle 193 pp (in Thai).
2400 1800 1200 1
2
3
4
5
6
Somatic cell score from bulk tank
Fig. 1 Box and Whisker plots indicating correlations between somatic cell score and net income. 3600
Net income (baht/cow/month)
Begin
Follow
a
3200 2800 2400 2000 NON
MILD
HIGH
HHPM group
Fig. 2 Least square means of net income analyzed by mix models after adjustment for the SCS effect. “a” indicates the difference between beginning and following phase at p < 0.01. The result from this study indicated that the achievement of HHPM program, using net income for evaluating parameter, were not related only the veterinarian, but farmers also be the key factors on this (Fig. 2). This was supported by the requirements of participants in HHPM that farmers has to be communicate and cooperate with external experts for support in farm management (1).
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Proceedings, The 15th Congress of FAVA FAVA -OIE Joint Symposium on Emerging Diseases
27-30 October
Bangkok, Thailand
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