THE ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY OF A VETERINARY PREVENTIVE MEDICINE AND MANAGEMENT PROGRAM IN VICTORIAN DAIRY HERDS

SUMMERY: This paper reports the major results of a 4-year controlled study of the impact of a dairy herd health and management program on dairy farms. The aim of the project was to conduct a practical preventive medicine program which could be operated by practising field veterinarians to assess the economic value of the program. The analysis of performance involved 59 program farms which received the program and 47 surveillance farms which did not receive the program. Each group commenced with 80 farms. A comparison of indices reflecting the efficiency of production showed relative gains for program herds when compared to surveillance herds and these differences were significant for the indices of butterfat per hectare (P=.001) and butter fat per man (P=.005) but not for butterfat per cow (P=.455). The indices of financial efficiency showed significant improvements in program farms when compared with surveillance farms in the standardised change in gross margin per hectare (P=.001), per man (P=.003) and per cow (P=.007). On a mean whole-farm basis, the program gave an improvement in gross margin of 23.58, 65.56 and 90.30 per hectare in the second to fourth years respectively of the project when compared with performance in the first year. Mean intercalving intervals were significantly shorter in program than surveillance herds throughout the project (P=.013). The proportion of cows calving within 8 weeks of the start of the calving season increased from 68.5% to 74% in program herds and from 72% to 73% in surveillance herds, but there was no significant difference (P=.101) between groups in this change. The standardised change in bulk milk cell count was greater in program herds than surveillance herds, but the quarter infection prevalence of surveillance herds. which was only measured in the final year of the project, was significantly lower than the prevalence measured at the same time in program herds. It was concluded from this study that the dairy health and management program tested in this study represents a highly profitable investment for dairy farmers.