Classification of Dairy Units at the Valle del Perú Cattle Raising Enterprise.

Abstract

Thirty dairies from a dairy company were characterized. Discriminant Function Analysis was applied. Eleven variables were used: annual milk production; milk production/cow/day; births; percent of milking cows; total cows; empty cows; Percent of areas with Pennisetum purpureum vc. Cuba CT-115; percent of areas with improved pas-tures, milk L cost; total costs in CUP; and number of workers. The dairies were divided into three groups, based on annual milk production for three years (high, medium, low). Dairies in group 1 showed a more favorable behavior than in group 2; and the latter had higher values than group 3, except for the total costs. The most significant variables causing group differences were total births, percent of milking cows , and total cows. The results proved that, relatively, there were three types of dairies in the company: high, medium, and low annual milk production. That in-formation was useful to set up technological strategies to improve the performance of the least producing dairies.

Keywords

• multivariate analysis
• classification
• discriminant power
• dairies