DairyNZ economists Matthew Newman and Angie Fisher said DairyBase figures show the average animal health spend across the country has been about $80/cow since 2010-11.
The same data set shows a huge range – from $21/cow to $172/cow although only 13% of farms spent less than $50/cow and 60% of farms spent between $50 and $100/cow.
Issues arise with how animal health costs are coded and exactly what’s included in the animal health line in the accounts. Breeding and herd improvement can sometimes be included by farmers as they put anoestrus products such as CIDRs into animal health.
In DairyBase, breeding and herd improvement is supposed to have its own line and the national data set shows the average has been about $45 for this area since 2011-12.
Dairy consultant Chris Lewis of Wairarapa-based firm Baker and Associates said $50/cow would be at the bottom end of what he sees while the highest would be about $150.
“But those numbers are going up,” he said.
“Only 10 years ago it was more common to be talking about $35/cow so we’ve seen those costs more than double in that time.”
Lewis said he’d noticed a couple of trends when it came to animal health costs.
Farms with production/cow also tended to have higher animal health costs/cow, although on a kg milksolids basis these were diluted.
He’d also observed that those who focused hard on keeping animal health costs down also tended to have lower total operating costs.
Those who found that “sweet spot” of high cow performance and low animal health costs were the people who took a targeted approach to specific animal health issues and cost-efficient ways of dealing with them, he said.
For instance if they had a magnesium issue they’d focus on the cheapest way to deal with that directly rather than take a more “scattergun” approach and use a broader product promoted as improving overall herd health.
Southland dairy consultant Ivan Lines said most of his clients fell into the $50 to $100/cow range but it was hard to make proper comparisons as some farmers just took their vet bill and put it all under animal health.
“The major difference is in how often they call the vet out. Some will call them out for everything and some are experienced enough to treat cows or assist with a difficult birth themselves,” Lines said.
Some farmers will routinely vaccinate for something like rotovirus and others won’t or some will use a blanket dry cow therapy while others don’t, he said.
Farmers will also use their vet differently – some will use them only to treat a sick animal and some will use them as an advisor to train staff and implement preventive programmes.
But even with good herd health, low cell counts and an experienced operator onfarm it’s difficult to get animal health costs below $50/cow, Lines said.
Farmers should be aware that vet costs, drugs and the way vets charge can vary hugely from practice to practice, he said.
Vets are obliged to provide a farmer with a prescription if veterinary drugs are required and farmers are well within their rights to take that prescription elsewhere to be filled.
