How to Boost Your Milk Check

Class III milk price futures now average below $14 per cwt. While there’s nothing you can do to change that, you can increase your milk check by increasing the pounds of protein they ship, says Stephen Emanuele, senior dairy scientist and technical advisor for Quality Liquid Feeds.

“Dairy producers should track pounds of protein and butter fat that they produce per cow because that’s what they get paid on,” he says. “Right now, the average Holstein herd is shipping about 5.8 pounds of components per cow. If the dairy can track that, they can try to work on shipping 6 and 6.5 pounds which will increase the value of the milk and size of their milk check.”