Economic Utilization of Forages in Production of Milk and Beef in the Northeast United States

Abstract

Economical forage production, storage, and feeding systems for production of milk, dairy steers, and steers of a traditional beef breed on a productive land resource and production of milk, dairy steers, and cow-calf operation of a traditional beef breed on a marginal land resource were calculated. Profitability of these selected livestock enterprises on the marginal land resource also was calculated. On the productive land resource, growing either all forage and grain or only forage containing equal parts of hay crop silage and corn silage was most economical for milk production. For dairy steer and traditional beef steer production, 100% of the forage from corn silage was the system with low cost. On the marginal land resource, the system of all hay was low cost for milk production and only a slightly lower cost system for dairy steer production. Systems of corn silage and pasture were most economical for cow-calf operations. Dairy steer production can be competitive with profits from milk production on a marginal land resource, but cow-calf operations are supplementing income enterprises. © 1981, American Dairy Science Association. All rights reserved.