Return Over Feed (ROF)

ROF (Return Over Feed Costs) is a program that provides an economic benchmark to measure the effect of changes in herd performance. It will allow you to measure the cost to feed the milking herd for 1 day, the return based on the herd's production and components and provide you with a Return Over Feed Cost - ROF .

The concept of RETURN is important because the reason for making a management change is to improve the bottom line. Measuring just the cost of the change has no benefit to the manager, but measuring the return after the cost is a valuable and useful exercise. Everything done to a herd whether it be an additional cost or change in management is an INVESTMENT from which the manager expects to get a return.

The producer needs to collect the weights of ALL the feed fed to the herd for 1 day, the % dry matter of each feed, the milk in the bulk tank and the components from the most recent milk statement from the marketing agency. This information is entered into the program and the program will provide results and benchmarks that will allow you to compare yourself to others and more importantly to your past performance. The various reports show different comparisons.

In addition, there is an option to calculate the cost of Heifer and Dry Cow feed costs and allocate that to each milking cow resulting in NER (Net Enterprise Revenue) Once you are familiar with the process and results of the ROF program, you may wish to use the "Direct Crop Cost" worksheet to calculate direct cost to grow home grown feeds.

In the program, home-grown feeds will have a standard price attached to them based on quality. Purchased feeds will be priced at your cost. Milk revenue is calculated based on your components and the average price paid by DFO in the past year. Milk prices and home grown feed prices are changed only once per year in December. Home-grown feed and milk prices are based on Ontario conditions. If another region has sufficient number of tests to provide statistical significance, adjustments can be made.

Changes in your ROF from month to month are the result of changes in management (feeds, health, environment.) and you have the ability to influence it to improve the Return (ROF). It is recommended that a producer use ROF to analyze changes in feeds, management or climate to see the effect.

Each member is assigned to a group for peer comparison of ROF results. The group is usually producers from your geographic area. This will allow you to compare your results to other herds in your area of the country.

The cost of the program is $50.00 per year (plus GST). This allows unlimited analysis for your herd. You will be responsible to enter all your own data and print test day results. If you are interested in this analysis service, notify us and we will send you your password. Monthly group summaries, benchmarks and newsletters are available on the website.

For those wishing to use the program occasionally, a 'single-use' option is available for $10.00 per entry (plus GST)

There are a number of factsheets in the web site page "ROF Sample Reports/Factsheets" as well as ROF reports. Print them as they will explain how to use each section of the program. If you wish more information, please contact Bill Grexton: (519) 824-2320 (ext. 254).