MANAGEMENT PRACTICES ON VIRGINIA DAIRY FARMS

statistically different and can be viewed as farms having the same herd size. The 2 grazing farm groups
show similar ranges of herd size as well: 4 to more than 360 cows per farm.

Milk per cow

Production systems that rely on pasture grazing as a major source of forage inputs produce less milk than
feeding systems based on stored forages, according to respondents’ estimates. The average pounds of
milk produced per cow for all groups is significantly different. However, no information was requested
about dairy cow breeds. Some differences among the three groups could be attributed to breed make-up.
Milk production per head for Intensive Grazer is lowest at 16,313 pounds per cow per year, 2,664
pounds less than the mean (18,977 pounds) for the Confinement herds. The mean milk production for
the Moderate Grazer (17,729 pounds) herds falls almost halfway between the other 2 groups.

One major issue debated in the dairy industry concerns economic returns of confinement feeding with its
higher feed and capital costs and greater milk production per cow versus pasture-based systems. This
survey data only highlights the differences based on milk production and provides no information on cost
per pound of milk produced. Farmers adopting intensive grazing must be aware that milk output per cow
is likely to decline and that usually a dramatic reduction in costs must occur to make intensive grazing
profitable.

Table 4: Production characteristics.

¹ Means with different letters within columns are significantly different at P = 0.05.

Land Use

Confinement and Intensive Grazer farms have almost equal acreage per cow. Moderate Grazer farms
have a significantly larger land area for crops and pasture than the other groups. Major differences in
land use are seen when the groups are compared. The largest single use of land for Confinement farms is
corn production, whereas for Moderate Grazer and Intensive Grazer farms, permanent pasture is the most
common use of land resources.

Acres of corn per cow

Proponents of dairy cattle grazing suggest that the need for high-energy, capital-intensive forages like
corn silage, should decline as grazing intensity increases. Survey results support this conclusion. Mean
corn acreage per cow is significantly different among the three groups and decreases with grazing
intensity. Confinement farmers grow an additional 0.27 acres of corn per cow compared to Moderate
Grazer farmers and 0.46 acres more than Intensive Grazer farmers.

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