If there’s anything consistent in the dairy business, it’s that milk prices and milk supplies fluctuate, sometimes dramatically. 

When we’re in a phase during which we’re awash in milk, pricing scenarios can leave a portion of a farm’s production with little value. Or there may be nearby, bulk waste milk or components available at inexpensive prices. 

However, a seemingly “cheap” or “free” product actually can be very expensive in the long run. Consider these factors when weighing the decision to switch from milk replacer to whole milk to raise your herd replacements:

1. Bacterial safety

Milk is the perfect medium for bacterial growth. That’s why your processor has such high standards for pasteurization, sanitation, chilling, and transportation.  If you can’t match those standards for the milk you feed your calves, you could be creating a recipe for a calf-health disaster.

2. Vertical disease transmission

In addition to common scours caused by high bacterial counts, raw milk can be a vector to transmit diseases from adult cows to calves. Mycoplasma, Johne’s disease, Bovine Leukosis (BLV) and Bovine Viral Diarrhea Virus (BVDV) all can cause long-term health consequences in your replacement heifers.

3. Equipment

Safely feeding milk requires on-farm pasteurization. Setting up an effective pasteurizing system takes a considerable investment in equipment, along with training and labor. That includes protecting the quality of the milk before and after pasteurization. And don’t forget the additional equipment needed to transport, store, chill and re-warm milk to the proper feeding temperature.

4. Logistics

For many farms, the calves are not raised on the same site as the milking herd. Using your own milk requires the routine, safe transport of that milk from where it is made to where the calves are being fed, as well as and proper storage of it after delivery.

5. Storability

You can safely stockpile several months’ worth of milk replacer powder to ensure a secure, steady supply, as opposed to only a few days’ worth of liquid milk.

6. Labor

Nearly every dairy is facing a shortage of qualified workers these days, and handling fresh milk requires due diligence and attention to detail on a daily basis. Feeding milk replacer correctly also takes training and consistency, but there is less room for error and the protocols are simpler. Plus, switching back and forth between milk and milk replacer as supply fluctuates is never a good idea – for the calves or the people feeding them.

7. Nutritional consistency

High-quality milk replacer is formulated to exact standards that ensure you know what you’re delivering to your calves at every feeding, every day. It, too, contains milk, but is developed to help you consistently achieve calf growth goals based on sound nutrition plans, without the day-to-day nutritional variations and bacterial risks associated with feeding milk.

8. Feeding flexibility

Milk replacer also can be precisely tailored to accommodate changes in weather conditions, calf growth stage and weaning procedures. It’s also much more easily adjusted for desired fat and protein content than milk. And there’s no more convenient way to deliver beneficial medications like Deccox®, Bovatec®, Clarifly®, as well as helpful additives such as mannan oligosaccharides (MOS) or direct-fed microbials, than to add them to milk replacer.

9. Technical support

There’s more in a bag of milk replacer than just the powder. For Strauss Feeds, our milk replacer also comes with the backing of thorough product research and quality control, as well as technical support and advice from our staff nutritionists and helpful field team.

10. Your herd’s future

The calves you’re feeding today are the cows you will be milking in two years or less. No doubt, you want to rear the healthiest, best-grown, most productive animals you can – lactating replacements that are able the maximize the careful decisions and investment you have made in their genetic make-up. Raising them on a consistent, well-balanced, carefully developed milk replacer program is another investment in their future and yours.

Finally, it’s good to remember that over-quota milk still requires input costs to produce. So, if your cost of production is $13.00/cwt., that milk still costs $13.00/cwt. to produce, even if you are not fully compensated for it on the sales end of the equation.

If you are not being paid in full for your total production, it might make more sense to leave your milk-replacer-based calf nutrition program intact, and cut back on herd numbers or costly ration inputs and supplements to temporarily trim back your milk production. When prices improve, you can step production back up, while keeping your calves on a steady course of healthy development.

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