Economic effect of bovine abortion syndrome in commercial dairy herds in Southern Chile

Bovine abortion is a limiting factor for dairy business, as it decreases milk production and the potential, number of herd replacements, increases feeding and medical treatment costs, increases the number of artificial inseminations to obtain a calf as well as culling rates of cows. An estimation of the economic impact of abortion in dairy farms in Chile is not available yet. The aim of this study was to estimate the economic consequences of bovine abortion syndrome (BAS) in dairy cows from Chile. A stochastic model was proposed to evaluate the cost of an abortion on a yearly basis to include variability in cost and income by dairy and by year. The marginal total net revenue (ΔTNR) for a typical, lactation was obtained by the calculating the difference between total revenues (retail milk and calf sales) and total expenses (production cost (cows, feeding, labor, health) plus administrative and, general costs) for lactation with and without abortion. Production data were obtained from a retrospective study of 127 dairy herds located in southern Chile between 2000 and 2006. Milk production from cows with and without abortion was estimated by a mixed model using milk test day data. Production cost and prices paid to farmers were obtained from service company records (TODOAGRO S.A.). Cost and income value was corrected for inflation and expressed in the values from 2006. In addition, a separate analysis for different parities (1, 2, 3 or more) was performed. Distributions for the stochastic variables were obtained by fitting distributions from our database using @Risk. The stochastic variables included in the analysis were all related to income, feeding, depreciation, health, Artificial Insemination and general costs like fuel, salaries, taxes, etc. There was a high probability (89.20%) of a negative ΔTNR in lactations with abortion for overall, parities, with a mean loss of $ −143.32. Stratifying by parity, the predicted mean of the distribution for ΔTNR in each parity (1, 2, 3 or more) was also negative and the probability of a negative ΔTNR was 89.40%, 95.30% and 97.00%, respectively, but differs between them (p <0.05). For parity 1, mean ΔTNR was $ −120.92, parity 2 $ −116.35 and for parities ≥3 it was $ −132.26 and the mean was statistically different from the others (p <0.05). The age of culled cows was the input variable most correlated with TNR and dairy production was the second. However, the sale price of milk resulted in a low correlation with abortion cost.