Abstract

A deterministic bio-economic farm model was developed to estimate economic values (EVs) for important milk production traits affecting profitability and to define a breeding objective for New Zealand dairy goats. Costs, revenue, metabolisable energy requirements for maintenance and activity, pregnancy, lactation and growth of replacements were included in the farm model. Three payment systems were investigated; Current scenario: Total milk-solids; Scenario 1: Ratio 1:2 for fat (F) and protein (P) and Scenario 2: ratio 2:1 for F and P. A price of $13.00 per kg milk solids (MS) was assumed to calculate daily revenue per milk-solid component. A penalty of $0.04 per litre of milk was applied in the last two scenarios. Assumed values of 3.7%, 3.2%, 4.4% and 0.7% for fat, protein, lactose and minerals, respectively, were used to estimate price per kg of F and P in Scenarios 1 and 2. For the Current scenario, the EVs for fat, protein, lactose and volume were $11.64, $12.27, $12.39 and -$0.10, while the estimations in Scenario 1 were $14.49, $31.09, -$0.76 and -$0.14, respectively and in Scenario 2 were $28.92, $14.37, -$0.76 and -$0.14, respectively. The EV for live weight was -$2.16 across scenarios. The EVs estimated can be used to establish breeding objectives for New Zealand dairy goats.

J, Solis-ramirez, N Lopez-Villalobos, and HT Blair

Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production, Volume 72, Christchurch, 166-168, 2012