Some manners of culling in dairy farming
Culling is an inevitable activity in dairy industry, it is not only a high-cost operation in dairy farms, but also partial and indispensable importance of management and maintenance of herd’s scale and performance. In practice, many terms are used to describe culling, and many indices are also used, all of them leading to the ‘Herd turnover rate’. The methods to estimates these indices vary not only between indices, but even the same index. Currently, readers or users must be wary when interpreting values or comparing them with other herd indicators or studies.
Determining an appropriate culling rate is often difficult, there is no optimal culling index appropriate for all herds or for all the years. Culling rate is the net revenue of a series of culling decisions made on a day-to-day basis for each individual. These decisions are derived from economic considerations (milk price, waste price, replacement cost, etc.).
Categorizations of culling of dairy cows should be in accordance with the preferred approach, classification under the economic and biological culling are reasonable approaches. In order to increase economic efficiency in dairy farming, it is necessary to reduce the rate of biological culling rate in the way that improves the breeding, management and surrounding environment, while applying well the economic culling rate. Optimal culling rates for the whole country and for dairy herds shoud be varied from 25% to 35%.
