Break-Even Milk — The One-Page Calculation Every Farmer Should Do
15 Oct 2026 • Falah Enterprises
Most farmers know their milk price and the price of a bag of feed, and very few know the one number that joins them: the litres per day at which a cow stops costing and starts earning. It takes ten minutes and a piece of paper, and it changes how you feed.
Step 1 — the daily cost of keeping her
Write down, per day, for one cow:
- Dry fodder: kilos eaten × your cost per kilo (bought or the value of your own).
- Green fodder: the same.
- Compound feed: kilos fed × price per kilo from the bag.
- Mineral mixture, salt: a small daily figure.
- Labour, bedding, water, vet and medicine, share of shed: a rough daily figure — be honest, even if it is family labour.
Add them up. Call it C.
Step 2 — the price you actually receive
Not the shop's retail price — the price the dairy or the customer pays you per litre, after any deductions for fat and SNF. Call it P.
Step 3 — the break-even
Break-even litres per day = C ÷ P.
Everything above that line is profit; everything below is a cow eating your money.
A worked example
A household cow on 8 kg of dry fodder, 10 kg of green, 4 kg of GOKA Star, mineral mixture, and a fair figure for labour and the rest might cost around 300 rupees a day. At a milk price of 40 rupees a litre, break-even is 7.5 litres. At 10 litres she earns 100 rupees a day; at 6 she loses 60.
What the number tells you
- A cow permanently below break-even needs either better feeding — many are under-fed, not poor cows — or a decision.
- Cutting the compound feed to save money usually drops the litres faster than the cost, and pushes the cow below the line. Run the calculation with the feed cut and the milk drop you actually see; it is rarely a saving.
- Feeding to yield, with the feed calculator setting the quantity for her litres, is the way the line is crossed and stayed above.
Do it for each cow, once a season. The page will tell you more about your dairy than any amount of advice.