Periodically, UW-Extension Specialists and Agriculture Agents have collected farm level data to benchmark calf and heifer raising costs. Our first fact sheet The cost of raising dairy calves using individual or automated feeding systems covered the key findings comparing individual feeding systems (bottle or bucket) to using an automated milk feeding system.
In the factsheet Averages don’t tell the whole story, UW-Extension St. Croix County Agriculture Agent Ryan Sterry digs deeper into the variation in costs to rear calves in both systems. The lowest cost producer was $232 per calf, and the highest was $816 per calf, a significant range of $584.
For more information, please visit UW-Extension Dairy Replacement Management.
