[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":50},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-fabrika-yemi-mi-ciftlik-karmasi-mi-en":3},[4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22,24,26,28,30,32,34,36,38,40,42,44,46,48],{"p":5},"The owner of a 200-cow dairy farm looks at the invoice for the dairy feed bought from the mill and does a quick sum. Buying the ingredients on the label from the market and mixing them on the farm looks like it would save more than a thousand TRY a tonne. The neighbouring farm bought a mill and mixer a few years ago and says it is happy with it. The decision looks easy. But the gap between ingredient prices and the price of commercial feed is not the real gain from mixing your own.",{"h2":7},"The visible gap",{"p":9},"Take an example, with illustrative numbers. The farm uses 8 kg of concentrate per cow a day. For 200 cows that is 1.6 tonnes a day and about 584 tonnes of feed a year. Commercial feed costs 13,500 TRY a tonne delivered to the farm. The ingredients and premix needed to make a feed of the same nutrient value on the farm cost 11,800 TRY a tonne. The visible gap is 1,700 TRY a tonne, or about 990,000 TRY a year.",{"h2":11},"The hidden costs",{"p":13},"A farm that mixes its own feed takes on the jobs the mill used to do. The first item is equipment. Assume 1.2 million TRY is invested in a mill, mixer, weighing system and ingredient storage, written off over ten years. That is 120,000 TRY a year, about 205 TRY per tonne of feed. Maintenance and repairs come on top.",{"p":15},"The second item is labour. Assume a part-time worker for preparing feed, receiving ingredients, keeping stock records and cleaning the equipment costs 180,000 TRY a year. That is about 310 TRY a tonne. Energy, the electricity for the mill and mixer, adds about 60 TRY a tonne.",{"p":17},"The third item is shrink and loss. Ingredients lose moisture in storage, birds and rodents eat some, and some is spilled during transport and unloading. Shrink of 1.5 percent is about 180 TRY a tonne. Analysis costs have to be added too. Having ingredients and feed analysed regularly comes to about 40 TRY a tonne.",{"p":19},"Together these items come to about 795 TRY a tonne. The real gap is not 1,700 TRY a tonne but about 905 TRY, or about 530,000 TRY a year. Still a worthwhile saving, but a little over half of the first sum.",{"h2":21},"Buying power and working capital",{"p":23},"Another item often forgotten in the sum is the purchase price of ingredients. A feed mill buys ingredients by the thousand tonnes. A farm buys a few truckloads at a time and usually pays more. If the ingredient cost of 11,800 TRY in the example above was worked out with the prices the mill pays, the farm's real cost will be higher.",{"p":25},"Working capital matters as well. A farm mixing its own feed has to hold ingredient stock for a few weeks, or for a few months at harvest. The money tied up in that stock cannot be used elsewhere and, depending on interest rates, can be a serious cost. With commercial feed, payment is usually on credit terms.",{"h2":27},"Quality and consistency",{"p":29},"The price of commercial feed covers not just the ingredients but formulation know-how, quality control and consistency. A farm that mixes its own feed has to look after ingredient analysis, keeping the formula up to date and mixing uniformity itself. A small weighing error or a wrong ingredient change shows up in the herd's milk yield before long.",{"p":31},"That is why most farms that mix their own feed work with a nutrition consultant, and the consultant's fee belongs in the sum too. But a farm working with a good consultant and regular analyses can tune the ration to its own forage and its own herd more precisely than commercial feed allows. That can be a gain beyond the cost saving on paper.",{"h2":33},"A middle way",{"p":35},"There is a middle way between commercial feed and feed made entirely on the farm. Some farms buy a supplement from the mill that is concentrated in protein, minerals and vitamins and mix it with their own grain and forage in the mixer wagon. In this approach the farm leaves the most precise weighing and the premix work to the mill but covers the largest items by weight itself.",{"p":37},"This middle way cuts equipment investment such as a mill and weighing system, lowers the labour load and limits the quality risk. The gain may not be as large as with a full on-farm mix, but for small and medium farms it is often the most balanced option. Choosing the make-up of the supplement to match the farm's forage decides how well this approach works.",{"h2":39},"When does it make sense?",{"p":41},"The gain from mixing your own feed grows quickly with scale. As fixed costs, equipment and labour, are spread over more tonnes, the cost per tonne falls. On a small farm these costs can eat the whole saving. On a large farm, or where several farms set up a shared mixing plant, the gain becomes clear.",{"p":43},"Growing your own grain changes the sum as well. A farm that grows its own barley or corn saves freight and middleman costs by feeding that grain instead of selling it and buying commercial feed. In that case the grain should be valued at the price it would fetch if sold from the farm.",{"h2":45},"Deciding with numbers",{"p":47},"OptiFormula TMR offers a feed library, forage and silage analyses and a mixer wagon loading list for building rations with the farm's forages and concentrate ingredients. Every ration shows daily cost per head and income over feed cost. Comparing a commercial feed and an on-farm concentrate in the same ration shows clearly what the decision means at ration level.",{"p":49},"There is no single right answer to whether to buy commercial feed or mix your own. The right answer comes not from the visible price gap but from a full sum that includes every cost and every risk.",1794234580675]