Last November, this column reported that 2009 was shaping up to be a ‘rough’ year for dairy producers because the projected milk price had fallen from $20 to $17 per hundred weight. Since then, the bottom has fallen out and the milk prices farmers are staring at now are a mind-numbing $13.50 average for 2009. Prices for milk produced in February are projected in the $11.50 range. This is about half the price of milk just a year ago.

What I have described as rough water earlier has now turned out to be something of a tsunami. Tsunami’s wreck everything and everybody. When these low prices hit during the next few months, the difference between income and costs will be so great that most producers will be swamped with bills that cannot be paid. The majority will have enough cash to pay for feed and labor and precious little else.

Dairy producers spend between 75% and 85% of their income on operating expenses. They support veterinarians, accountants, service technicians, nutritionists, breeders, crop specialists, seed and fertilizer suppliers, electric and telephone companies, insurance agents, equipment suppliers and their mechanics and technicians and a host of others, including farm families and farm employees. When dairy producers suffer, a lot of other businesses and people suffer along with them.

Reports from other major milk producing regions of the county indicate a common theme. In California, they are describing it as a ‘blood bath.’ In Western states such as Texas and Idaho, it is a “trainwreck.’ In Wisconsin, the price dip has been called a ‘crater.’ These producers have it worse than dairy farmers in the Northeast because our market utilizes more milk in the fluid, or beverage milk category than in the manufacturing category. Beverage milk is priced higher than milk used for making cheese.

This dramatic price collapse is caused by an over abundance of supply relative to demand in national and international markets. Although supply has been growing at about 1 -2% per year, demand has been growing even faster, creating higher milk prices. With a world wide recession taking hold, consumers in the U.S. ,China, India and other places have cut back on consumption of dairy products practically overnight. Low price will put the brakes on supply and eventually demand and supply will find equilibrium at an acceptable price. Getting there is the painful part of the process, and the depth of this price cliff has even seasoned professionals shell-shocked and paralyzed.

The silver lining of this story is why I am proud to be a part of the agricultural community. Reminiscent of how the farming community turns out to help during a barn fire, all sectors of the industry are starting to meet and figure out how to help dairy producers make it through this crisis. There is something to be said for how struggle gives the human spirit an opportunity for growth.

Holstein cows, the most common dairy bovine, thrive in cooler climates. Shielded from the wind, they can withstand very cold temperatures just fine as long as the energy levels in their feed rations are increased to compensate for the colder environment. Cows generate a lot heat – enough to keep traditional barns warm during the winter. Modern freestall barns however, are designed to keep cows cool and comfortable during the other 10 months of the year. Their cavernous design allows heat to escape while maintaining a draft-free environment. When temperatures reach the single digits for extended periods, everything with water in it turns solid.

In a facility designed for liquids to flow, that is not a good thing. Manure cannot be scraped from floors and water troughs become surreal ice sculptures. Laneways from barns to milking parlors become treacherous. Pipes, pumps and milking equipment need to be protected from freezing up, or thawed-out when they do freeze.

Cows are treated with special teat dips after milking to protect them from frostbite. New born calves are rushed to warming pens until they are dry. Calf raisers increase the amount of milk fed calves to provide them with more cold-fighting energy. Everyone’s job on a dairy farm becomes more challenging in the face of biting wind, snow-packed ice and slippery everything. As difficult as managing a herd of dairy cows is during frigid weather, the work really begins once temperatures reach the upper 20’s and several days of manure begin to thaw all at once.

And yet, in the face of all of this, a dairy farmer dressed in six layers of clothes, will look you in the eye and say in all sincerity “Isn’t it a beautiful winter day!” Now that’s loving your job.

Current Situation
In the middle of November I wrote that 2009 was shaping up to be a difficult dairy year because of higher costs and lower projected milk prices. Milk prices in 2008 averaged about $19 per hundredweight. In November, futures markets were projecting farm gate milk prices for 2009 in the $17 range. Since then, milk prices have gone from bad to worse. During the last several weeks, milk prices crashed though the $14 range and nobody is sure where the bottom is yet.

Milk prices that are 20 to 30 percent below the cost of production will cause significant ripple effects through the dairy industry, impacting all the businesses that depend on profitable dairy farms for their livelihood, including feed manufacturers, lenders, veterinarians and medical suppliers and farm workers and their families. Reports from other major dairy producing regions of the U.S. indicate a similar or worst economic environment.

The hooves of dairy cows are equivalent to our fingernails. They grow continually and like our fingernails, need regular maintenance to perform well. A mature cow weighs between 1,100 and 1,500 lbs and when she walks, that weight is distributed on 3 hoofs, each carrying 400 lbs or more on a surface are about the size of a slice of bread. Have one step on your toe and that fact becomes immediately apparent!

If her hoof is not square to the floor, all that weight is distributed to an even smaller surface area and lameness can develop. When it hurts a cow to walk, her nutrition will be thrown off because it is less painful laying in her stall than getting up to eat and drink. This reduces the amount of milk she can produce and impacts her capacity to become pregnant again. Experts have calculated that a lame cow costs a dairy producer between $300 and $800 per cow in lost milk production. Compare this to the $10 to $15 hoof trimmers charge to trim a cow’s feet and the decision to maintain foot health is a no-brainer.

Proper hoof health on a dairy farm starts with the use of regular foot baths that are maintained for cows to walk through several times a week. These foot baths help control hairy foot warts, an infectious disease of the hoof. Commonly, the hoof trimmer will work on a cow twice a year. Once at 120 days in milk (dairy lingo for number of days since a cow has given birth) and at dry-off, or two months before she is scheduled to freshen.

If you know what to look for, you probably have seen hoof-trimmers on their way to work. The tell-tale sign is the pickup truck pulling their portable hoof trimming table. Once at the farm, the hoof trimmer sets up this contraption in a part of the barn where cows will be sorted for hoof trimming. Cows enter through a gate which keeps them from moving back and forth. Large straps are tightened around the cow’s body, holding her firmly against the table side of the chute so she cannot hurt herself or the trimmer. The entire table is pivoted so that the cow lays on her side with her feet at a comfortable working height for the hoof trimmer. Her legs are restrained with straps during the delicate trimming process.

The hoof trimmer’s tool box will contain special knives, grinders, trimming discs, hoof nippers, topical treatments, wraps and special hoof-shaped blocks that can be glued to hoofs that need an extreme make-over. Hoof trimmers provide valuable information to dairy producers about the nutrition of the herd or condition of floors and alleys from what they discover in hooves. This highly skilled person has dirty job that requires them to work in whatever the temperature is outside. It is also one of the best paying jobs in the dairy industry.

Most dairy herds run out of last year’s corn silage (chopped, fermented corn) and must start feeding this year’s crop now. Although the silage may look like the same and may even be the same variety, growing conditions have a tremendous impact on its nutrient content. Farmers are masters at controlling variables, but controlling the weather is still beyond their capability.

Corn silage grown during a hot wet summer will have different levels of energy and nutrients than corn silage grown in a hot dry summer. Cool summers or summers with fewer sunny days, or wet weather at harvest time, or dry weather during silking, all have an impact on silage quality. This uncontrollable variability is both the bane and the blessing for the family owned dairy farm. On the one hand, adjusting dairy rations for optimal milk production is a constant challenge. On the other hand, the level of variability is so great that corporations find it too risky to undertake the vertical integration like in the pork and poultry industries.

The challenge facing a dairy farm’s nutritionist this time of year is that he or she is working with a feed source that is still undergoing a metamorphosis of sorts. In layman’s terms, the corn silage has not had enough time to fully “cook.” More technically, the process of fully fermenting a pile of say 10,000 tons of silage takes a full 3 to 4 months. Harvested in September, the bacteria in the silage have not fully completed their growth cycle which produces lactic and acetic acids, both natural preservatives. Until that time, the nutrient content of the pile is constantly changing. If there is one thing cows don’t like, it is change. They don’t like change in their daily routine and they especially don’t like change in their diet.

On a modern dairy farm, the nutritionist’s job is to take whatever the dairy farmer has for forage, analyze it for nutrient content and devise a ration of purchased feedstuffs and minerals that when mixed with the farm’s grown forages, will keep cows healthy and allow them to produce milk at their genetic potential. A typical corn silage analysis will provide information on the levels of ash, lactic acid, acetic acid, butyric acid, water, sugar, acid detergent fiber, neutral detergent fiber, total digestible nutrients, lignin, crude protein, digestible protein, crude fat, net energy and minerals. These and other nutrient levels are determined through wet chemistry, near infrared reflectance, and fermentation tests at laboratories throughout the U.S. The results of these tests are entered into computer models to help develop the precise rations that are fed to cows.

Current Conditions
In New York, the 2008 corn silage, although good, is turning out to be a lower quality than 2007’s crop. Although yields were excellent, producers will probably find it more difficult to make milk this coming year. Everyone is hoping that this year’s December slump will be temporary and that January’s forage tests will be bring better news to producers, nutritionists and most especially, cows.