Wisconsin Ag Connection - Cooler Weather Helped Milk Production Go Up in July

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Cooler Weather Helped Milk Production Go Up in July
Wisconsin Ag Connection - 08/20/2014

Wisconsin dairy farmers were able to get more milk out of their cows once again in July compared to the same time a year earlier. According to the USDA's monthly milk production report, the Dairy State put out 2.39 billion pounds of milk last month, up 3.4 percent from July 2013, and higher than June's 2.31 billion pounds (which had one less day on the calendar).

Nationally, 16.4 billion pounds of milk were produced in the 23 major dairy states, which was up four percent higher than in 2013, and more than the previous month's 16.2 billion.

California continues to have the highest total production with about 3.52 billion pounds. Arizona had the greatest increase in year-to-year output as that state harvested 378 million pounds of milk in July, up 8.9 percent from the same month last year.

Only three of the major milk producing states had no increase in production in July when compared with last year as cooler weather this summer made it easy for herd managers to keep their animals more comfortable.

Meanwhile, the number of milk cows in the major dairy states totaled 8.58 million head, about 56,000 head more than July 2013, and 6,000 more than June 2014. The average number of milk cows on Wisconsin farms for the month was 1.27 million head--1,000 more than last month, but 2,000 fewer than a year ago. Production per cow averaged 1,885 pounds.

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