An investigation of the causes and the financial losses due to early removal in Holstein farms of Isfahan province

The objective of this study was to estimate the financial losses due to culling and replacement as well as the causes of culling in industrial dairy herds of Isfahan province. Data collected from 4 Isfahan dairy farms including 109896 calving records during the years 2006 to 2017. A bio-economic model was used for financial losses estimation and SAS software for statistical analyses. The rate of culling over the past decade has increased by an average of 1.2% per year (13.1% in 2006; 28.5% in 2016). The average of culling rate in 4 herds was 23.2%. The voluntary culling was only 5.8%. The most significant reasons of involuntary culling were infectious disease (31.4%) and reproduction problems (28.8) that mainly happen in summer. On average, each case of culling led to 17800 thousand Rials losses to dairy cow’s producers. The losses due to the culling of the primiparous were 54% higher than that of cows with multiparous. The losses due to culling in the first month of milking were estimated at an average of 20460 thousands Rials which caused 35% more losses per cow than those milking in the tenth month. The results of this research could be used in cost-benefit analysis of management strategies for cull and replacement of heifers.