Abstract:
The objective of this research is to study cost and quality of herd replacement in order to compare between farmer and herd replacement center whether there is any difference and what is it. Also, study about the economies of scale of herd replacement in order to figure out the economic production unit and cost. The results of the research will be applicable in planning, controlling, and therefore, increasing the effectiveness of breeding herd replacement in Thailand. From the investigation of 292 samples of herd farm from 4 provinces which are Ratchburi-Saraburi-Cholburi-and Nakornprathom, separating cost by category, it's found that the most portion of the cost of herd replacement is "food cost", following by "labor cost". These 2 costs are accounted to be 90% of total cost. When compute cost per unit for herd replacement, it's found that the small farm has higher cost of breeding than the medium and the big farms which unit cost are 43301.24Bt, 3373.87Bt, and 30205.08Bt respectively. When compute the cost of breeding herd replacement of herd replacement center by separating into 2 cases. First, breeding the replaced herd til it bears new kid, costing 28899.45Bt per unit. Second, breeding replacing herd for the farmer till it has been pregnant for 3 months by pricing it 29000Bt per unit, additional, the cost of breeding is 26235.94Bt per unit. Therefore, if compare the cost between farmer and herd replacement center, it's found that the breeding cost till it's bearing of herd replacement center is lower than the cost of farmer in every size of farms. Also, it's found that the replacing herd which breeded the herd replacement center gives birth in the younger age than the farmers', that is, the herd breeded by herd replacement center can be mated at the age of 16 months and will be giving birth at the age of 26 months. However, the average age for mated of the herd breeded by the farmers is at 18 months and 28 months for giving the birth. Therefore, it can be concluded that the herd breeding by herd replacement center is more effective than the farmers' herd. When studying the economies of scales of breeding herd replacement finding Regression analysis by OLS method in order to bring out the long-term average cost line. The result shows that the herd replacement brings economies of scales in the term of unit produced. That means when the unit of cow increases, the cost per unit of herd replacement decreases. The optimum point is at the unit cow of 20, the cost eper unit falls at the lowest point. After this point, the marginal average cost gradually increase. The most appropriate range of cow is around 15-25 units