Why Use Dairy Margin Tracker's Tracker Tool?
4 May 2017
I'm going to start off with a simple point. You sell pounds of butterfat, protein and other solids. So why not track them?
Take a look at these two examples. When I look at a component yield graph there are two things I watch for:
- Production Level - how many lbs of BF or P is being produced?
- Consistency - how much day to day variation is there?
Of course, we want the most pounds of product produced per day, that goes without saying, but consistency is just as important. The farms that do a great job of managing have more consistent production day in day out. Think of a rumen as a big fermentation vat, not unlike a beer fermenter. The more consistent the feedstuff going into the fermenter, the more consistent the output.
Take a look at these two examples:
The graphs are milk yield, BF yield and P yield. Which one is more consistent? Where do we need to look to increase consistency? Was there a mixing error? Milking time? We don’t know yet, but at least we know there is an issue. The goal is to drive out variation, then raise the line.
At Dairy Margin Tracker, we make it easy to track what matters.