Hidden Costs of Waste Milk (Part 2)

Now you know how the cost of production and solids can affect calves and the bottom line. Should you determine it is still economically beneficial to feed waste milk instead of milk replacer, now you have to consider the equipment needed to transport and feed waste milk. 

Say a Milk Taxi will work well for your calf system. That is a minimum investment of about $8,200. While this is a great investment because of the flexibility to easily switch from milk to milk replacer, it is an investment that wouldn’t HAVE to be made if you fed milk replacer alone. 

If the calf barn or calf raising area is too far away to use a Milk Taxi or if you need more volume than the taxi can hold, you will need to invest in some kind of hauler (again, depending on how many calves you feed). You will also need to invest in a pasteurizer with the ability to hold at a cool temperature until milk is ready to be pasteurized and held at feeding temperature. Even if you choose not to pasteurize waste milk, you will still have to invest in a way to heat it up to the proper feeding temperature before distributing. Feeding temperature is vital to the health and performance of the calf, and the initial 100OF of the milk coming out of the tank will quickly cool in transportation to the calf. Final feeding temperature to the calf should be 105-107OF, so even a short transport distance requires an additional heating method. This equipment needed can run anywhere from $5,000 to much more. 

Feeding milk replacer can be as simple as having some warm water and a few basic tools! The label on our milk replacer requires a mixing temperature of 120F with a final feeding temperature between 105-107OF. A small kitchen scale, thermometer, drill with a paint mixer on it, and a cooler on the back of a golf cart, or a wagon if you don’t have to go far are all you need! While a golf cart or UTV would be a larger investment, depending on your size, you could easily work around not having one. Without the hauler in both situations, you are looking at an investment of around $500 versus $5000, and there’s no possible mechanical issues with a cooler!

We fed milk replacer out of a cooler for a few months while our new barn was going up. It was winter, so we were concerned about the final delivery temperature of the milk, but the cooler easily held temperature for over 30 minutes. We used a 2L pitcher to distribute the milk, and it took us right around 20 minutes to feed 64 calves. The cleaning process with our cooler system was also very quick and easy!

While there are various ways to feed milk, we have always found milk replacer to be more convenient, cheaper in terms of equipment needed, and easier to manage than whole milk. When we used to feed waste milk, we found we had more calf issues, which is something we will dive deeper into in our next post. 

As calf raisers we face so many challenges and costs, eliminating one of the possible issues can give you peace of mind. While this might not be completely new information, we wanted to offer some alternative solutions to help you weigh out the benefits and potential drawbacks of different feeding styles and give you some ideas that could help you save money AND increase calf quality at the same time! 

We have found comfort in our milk replacer company as  a trusted and knowledgeable team of people who care about their growers.

If you are interested in purchasing some Denkavit milk replacer, please send us a message and we will help connect you!