DairyCents for iPad: Track Income Over Feed Costs and Feed Prices

PSU Dairy Cents for iPad is a mobile app offering two features – a quick calculation of income over feed costs and price comparison of various forages, grains and commodities to the Penn State Feed Price List and other users of the data base.



Income Over Feed Costs (IOFC) - This feature of the app illustrates what is happening with the markets and how it is affecting IOFC.

Income over feed cost per cow or per cwt is a tool to examine how well the lactating ration cost matches the production of the herd. Enter your zip code, select the milk production level, and date. The app will calculate IOFC. The display will show feed cost/cwt, feed cost/cow, gross milk price, milk margin/cwt milk and IOFC/cow/day. If you select historic data, enter you zip code, milk production and units (per cow or cwt). It will graph IOFC, feed cost and milk price starting from January 2012.

Feed Price Comparison - This section of the app allows the user to track over time how prices of select ingredients are trending.

The feed price section allows the user to compare their purchased feed price to the Penn State Feed Price List and to other users in the database who have purchased the same feed. Enter your zip code, feed selection, unit, price per unit, number of units purchased and date. Click submit pricing. Select “All Feed Data”, the particular feed you are interested in and graph results for your data, average for Pennsylvania and/or other user’s data.