The Dairy Expansion decision support tool is designed to explore projections of dairy farm production and expansion scenarios and simulate specific metrics of their performances. Thus, it provides critical information dairy producers need to actively manage risk on their dairies.
The DE-DSS forecasts a monthly projection of the cash flow ($ value) aggregated from all animals in the herd in response to factors such as lactation, month after calving, and month in pregnancy according to an expected milk production, feed intake, and labor requirements. The tool offers the possibility to manage scenarios of expansion either by “growing from within” with their own raised heifers or by buying extra heifers in the market. Users have also the possibility to schedule sales of heifers reared on farm and make additional investments with the use of bank loans.
The new web-based decision support tool is available at UW-Extension Dairy Management. Additional web-based tools supporting feeding, heifers, reproduction, genomics, production, replacement, health, financial, price risk, and environment can be found at Decision Support Tools.