In planning your winter feeding program, the first thing to determine is which cows are likely to return a profit in the future and which ones are not, and therefore should be culled.
The three main aims should be:
Design and feed milkers diets that generate the best possible margin over feed cost (thereby limiting impact on cash flow).
Protect your farm's longer term productivity by maintaining good cow body condition and health.
Protect long term productivity of pastures. This will enable them to bounce back quickly when conditions improve in spring.
While every farm situation is unique, this article highlights points you should consider when planning your feeding program and weighing up specific options.
Feed Planning
Understanding feed costs on an annual and monthly basis relative to milk income is critical. The first task is to understand your milk price, milk income and feed expenditure and how they will impact on cash flow through until the end of July 2023. Work can then start on a detailed cash flow budget for 23/24.

The cash flow budget needs to be built on a sound monthly milk income