MANAGEMENT PRACTICES ON VIRGINIA DAIRY FARMS

Acres of hay per cow

Confinement farms produce 0.60 acres of hay per cow, significantly less than hay acres per cow grown on
Moderate Grazer farms. The acreage of hay grown on Intensive Grazer farms is not significantly
different from either Confinement or Moderate Grazer.

Acres of hay/pasture per cow

Respondents were asked how much hay land was also pastured during some part of 1996. Confinement
farmers used 0.25 acres of hay/pasture—significantly less than either Moderate Grazer (0.41 acres) and
Intensive Grazer (0.56 acres) farmers. No significant differences were found between hay/pasture
acreage on Moderate Grazer and Intensive Grazer farms.

Acres of permanent pasture per cow

Intensive Grazer (1.06 acres) and Moderate Grazer (1.18 acres) farms have significantly larger acreage of
permanent pasture than Confinement (0.80 acres) farms. Again, no significant difference in permanent
pasture acreage between Moderate Grazer or Intensive Grazer farms was found.

Table 5: Land use characteristics per cow.

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

Technology and Management Practices

An array of questions was asked regarding current and future use (within three years) of selected
technologies and practices (Table 6). Overall, farmers responding to the survey have used innovations to
improve efficiencies in milking cows. Adoption of computer technology for all groups has lagged most
other technology. However, more than half the farmers plan to use a computer in their farm business
within the next three years.

Milking parlor and automatic takeoffs use

The larger sized Confinement farmers lead the adoption of both these technologies with 96 percent
reporting use of milking parlors and 84 percent using automatic takeoffs. Moderate Grazer and Intensive
Grazer farmers reported using milking parlors on more than 90 percent of their farms, but automatic
takeoffs are used by only 59 percent of the Moderate Grazer farmers and 51 percent of Intensive Grazer
farmers. Intensive Grazer and Moderate Grazer farmers plan to slightly increase their use of automatic
takeoffs within the next three years.

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