Vad är verklig kostnad per koplats?

Abstract: Purpose There are almost infinite numbers of ways to build dairy farms in Sweden. When building a new free stall barn you have the possibility to affect both working environment and animal welfare for many years to come. The construction costs are influenced by which type of barn that is built and what functions it contains, for example one can predict that automatic milking systems are more expensive to integrate than milking parlours. But what is the real cost of today for the construction of free stall barns with milking centres and how is it affected by construction methods and functions? Is the labour time influenced by the building costs? These are some of the questions this report will try to answer. Today the knowledge about building costs is concentrated to experienced counsellor, but not even they can tell what the average dairy barn costs. Every farmer must decide if it is cheap or expensive. This thesis aims to clarify what the real costs of dairy farm construction in Sweden is today by putting together calculations from real farms. Problems This thesis will try to answer the following questions. What is the average construction cost per cow and in which interval does it fall? Is the cost per cow lower in bigger barns than in smaller ones? Which milking system has the highest and the lowest construction cost. Is it cheaper to build an uninsulated barn? If a greater investment is made in the barn is this reflected in less labour time in future production? Has the construction cost become relatively higher during the years or just followed the general cost development? Method The study began with a literature review where scientific studies from Sweden and around the world were analysed to map how the costs should be put together to give the correct construction costs. The literature review also showed cost position between Sweden and other parts of Europe. The actual study were carried out as a questionnaire to the farmers. The questionnaire were sent to 100 farmers who had built new free stall barns between year 1999 and 2008. The answers were put together and compared to show upon trends. Result The average cost for a barn with milking centre built between 1999 and 2008, in 2007 year price level, was 64474 Swedish crowns per dairy cow in the range between 45224 and 89351 Swedish crowns. The exception was one farm which had built extremely cheap, 27195 Swedish crowns. No trend could be shown that it should be cheaper per dairy cow to build a big barn than to build a small one. When construction costs between different milking systems where compared it was shown that the differences in costs between milking parlours are small. Parallel parlours were the cheapest option, 62219 Swedish crowns per cow. Followed by rotory parlours, 63141 Swedish crowns per cow, and herringbone parlours, 65038 Swedish crowns per cow. The automatic milking systems were more expensive with an average of 80864 Swedish crowns per cow. If the farmer had built an insulated or uninsulated barn made great difference in the construction costs. Insulated barns were about 9200 Swedish crowns more expensive than uninsulated barns per cow. A trend was shown that a more expensive barn needed less labour time in operation. Naturally the greater investment must be compared with labour time profit. It was shown that building costs of the dairy farms in this study follow the Swedish farm building cost index. But that the construction costs have increased more than the general costs in the country. Conclusion The fact that the average building cost per cow were about 65000 Swedish crowns in this study doesn't mean that the costs per cow on a particular dairy farm should be exactly that. There are time and money to earn by investing more or less in different parts of the barns. If the farmer chooses to build an uninsulated barn the costs can be lowered. To choose automatic milking system instead of a milking parlour will cost more but the labour time needed is about ten hours less per cow and year. The choice of feeding system also affects the construction costs. Feeding alleys resulted in a lower cost per cow than mechanised feeding systems.