Predicted lactation value and Milk by lactation

What these pages help you do

Open Operations → Reports → Browse all reports and choose Predicted lactation value to estimate the current active lactations’ 305-day milk yield and value. Choose Milk by lactation to compare recorded milk and composition between first, second, third and fourth-or-later lactations. Both are dairy reports built from active lactations and available milk records. Neither report is a milk-payment statement or a substitute for the Milk Production Summary, which totals records over a date range you choose.

Neither page has a date filter, search box, export button or recording action. The figures update from current farm data when the report is loaded. A loading skeleton is temporary; a load error is not the same as an empty herd. An empty result says No active lactations on this farm.

Predicted lactation value: read the pricing banner and totals

The banner tells you which price basis is applied today:

Banner	How value is calculated
Quality-adjusted	An effective, standalone payout formula is used. The formula can use each cow’s lactation-average fat, protein and SNF data. The report has no buyer route, so it does not apply a route premium; unmeasured CLR and other absent quality inputs are not invented. The banner shows the formula name.
Flat pricing	The farm’s effective price per litre is used. Recorded kilograms are converted to litres using the farm’s current milk-density setting before pricing.
No milk price is set	Projected yield and available solids still appear, but value is a dash. Follow the banner’s price-per-litre link to Milk settings, or configure a standalone payout formula, then reload the report.

An effective standalone formula takes priority over the flat price. The formula’s currency is used when one is selected; the flat-price display uses the tenant currency. A forward projection is valued using the currently effective configuration, so it can change if the price, formula or density changes even without another milk recording. Do not treat it as a confirmed buyer payment.

Summary card	Meaning
Active cows	Active lactation rows in this farm, including a lactation with no usable milk record.
Projected 305-day yield	Sum of the per-cow projected full-lactation yields. It is not milk already collected or sold.
Projected value	Sum of per-cow projected monetary values using the banner’s price basis, or a dash when no price basis exists.
Value still to come	Sum of each cow’s projected value minus that cow’s value to date. It is an estimate of the unrecorded part, not a receivable.

Predicted lactation value: read the cow rows

The wide table is virtualised and scrollable; on a narrow screen the same main facts appear as cards. Rows are ordered by projected value, highest first, or by projected yield if no pricing is available. Animal gives tag, name, national ID and breed. Lact is lactation number. DIM is farm-local days from the active lactation start to today, never below zero. To date is recorded yield in that lactation. Daily avg is To date ÷ DIM, not the average over only days with a milk recording.

Projected 305d uses a simple straight-line extension: To date + (Daily avg × (305 − DIM)) while DIM is below 305 and there is at least one record. If DIM is zero or there is no record, this calculation returns zero. A cow with milk recorded on the same farm-local date that her lactation starts can therefore show a positive To date value but zero Projected 305d; the current calculation can also make Value still to come negative for that row. Treat that as a projection limitation, not a forecast of negative future income. At or beyond DIM 305, the report uses the recorded total as the projection rather than extrapolating further. This is not a lactation-curve forecast; sparse recordings can make the estimate unrepresentative.

Fat / Protein are arithmetic means of the available percentages on that lactation’s active fused milk records. Each qualifying record has equal weight; the percentages are not weighted by that record’s yield. Proj. solids (F/P) multiplies projected yield by the respective mean to estimate fat and protein kilograms; either component is a dash if its percentage is absent. A quality-adjusted Projected value uses the same mean fat, protein and SNF inputs, so irregular sampling or records with very different volumes can make both solids and value estimates unrepresentative. Conf. is a data-volume indicator: below DIM 305, confidence increases with the number of milk records, at one percentage point per record up to 95%. It displays 0% with no record and 100% once DIM reaches 305. It is not a statistically calibrated probability that the projection will be achieved. Check recording completeness and the animal’s actual milk history before making a sale or feeding decision.

Milk by lactation: compare parity groups

The page groups active lactations into 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th+; the last group includes all lactation numbers of four or higher. Only bands with cows appear. The sentence above the chart counts all included cows. The horizontal bars compare Avg daily yield across visible bands; the longest bar has the highest displayed group average. Bar length is a relative visual comparison, not a target or a whole-herd total. A band with no recorded cow can display a zero average and still appear in the chart.

Table column	Meaning
Parity	The lactation-number band.
Cows	All active-lactation cows in the band, whether or not they have a milk record.
Avg DIM	Mean farm-local days in milk for every cow in the band, rounded to a whole day.
Avg daily yield	First calculate each recorded cow’s total yield ÷ its number of distinct recording days, then average those cow figures. Cows with no record do not enter this yield average.
Avg total to date	Mean recorded-to-date yield over cows with at least one recorded day, not every cow counted under Cows.
Avg fat / Avg protein	Mean of the available cow-level lactation-average percentages among recorded cows. A dash means no component values were available.

The page does not show its available Cows recorded count next to the Cows column. If one band has much poorer test coverage than another, its yield average describes a smaller recorded subset. Also, Avg daily yield here uses recorded days, while Predicted lactation value’s Daily avg uses every day in milk. These values answer different questions and should not be compared directly. For a date-bounded herd total or test-coverage review, use Milk Production Summary or Herd summary and inspect the underlying animal records.