Just made a post about rubber floors for dairy facilites. Came to realize there was a post on the same subject on April 2, 2008 with a spreadsheet dated March 30, 2008. The spreadsheet posted on the CDP web site is slightly updated from the March 30, 2008 version.

This was the question posed by a Jefferson County milking parlor user group. The answer begins with "it all depnds". It depends on how good or bad conditions are now and what benefits can be attributed to the addition of rubber floors. To help answer this question, a spreadsheet was developed to do some cost and benefit analysis. This spreadsheet and an article "What the Research Shows about the Use of Rubber Floors for Cows" is available on the Center for Dairy Profitability web site at URL:

http://www.uwex.edu/ces/dairymod/cowcomfort/index.cfm#costs

You can also access the site by clicking through the CDP sequence of menus as:

Dairy Modernization, Cow Comfort, Costs

The spreadsheet has been used with a few groups of dairymen and they have advised on some of the cell entries. With certain assumptions, rubber floors can have a very rapid payback (less than a year) or they will never payback (paybak period > life expectancy). This suggests there is no one answer to the question and existing conditions and expected results influence the decision to use them or not. 

A fact sheet summarizing the results of the Dairy Modernization Survey that was done on 99 WI farms in 2008 is now available at  http://www.uwex.edu/ces/cty/green/ag/documents/2008DairyModernizationSurveyFactSheet.pdf.

The dairy expansion era in North America, which gathered pace throughout the nineties and continues to this day, has resulted in the migration of dairy cattle from traditional tiestall and stanchion barns to the freestall facility, which has emerged as the dominant form of dairy cattle housing worldwide.

In this article, Dr. Nigel Cook will attempt to summarize the aspects of freestall design that are failing the cow, and justify the solutions we have found and the current trends emerging in the dairy industry of the Upper Mid-West. The challenge presented is to find the balance between excellent cow comfort and manageable cow cleanliness.

Greetings,

The paper summarizing the results of the 2008 Dairy Modernization Survey conducted by the UW-Extension Dairy Team has been posted on the Dairy Modernization webpage at  http://www.uwex.edu/ces/dairymod/cost/index.cfm  as well as on this blog under the Housing/Facilities catergory.   If you have programmed in Dairy Modernization you might find some of this information helpful when writing your impact statements and success stories for 2008.

I also have a PowerPoint presentation that goes with this study that can be downloaded from my website at http://www.uwex.edu/ces/cty/green/ag/index.html

Mark Mayer, Green County Dairy and Livestock Agent

mark.mayer@ces.uwex.edu