The Cost

Two months on her own reserves carries a price far bigger than the vet bills you see.

The energy gap doesn’t stay in the transition window. What she loses in those first weeks she pays for across the whole lactation — and across the herd, every year. Most of it never shows up as a vet bill; it shows up as milk, and as high-producing cows that quietly go missing.

See the solution →See the proof →
A dairy manager reviewing herd data on a tablet

Modern dairies measure this beautifully — and still pay it every year.

~£0.36/L
AHDB milk price used
800+ L
Forgone per cow (floor)
£288k+
Milk alone, per 1,000 cows a year
£414k+
Total recoverable exposure

One gap, six bills

A single deficit cascades across every measurable.

This isn’t one line item — it’s a cascade. We organised the cost of the consequences on a per-1,000-cow basis, so any farm can size its own exposure by herd size. Every direction traces back to the same three weeks.

Negative Energy Balance▼one deficit tips into six costs — each one falls from the one before it.
01
Lost milk
£288k+ / 1,000 cows
A lower, later peak and weaker persistency — hundreds of litres per cow across 305 days. The single biggest line, and the one we have measured.
02
Body condition
burned, then re-grown
Reserves mobilised in the deficit are re-grown later at a poor conversion rate. You pay for the same energy twice.
03
Disease
SCK, DA, mastitis, BRD
Metabolic and infectious trouble clusters in the fresh pen — each event carrying treatment, dumped milk and labour.
04
Fertility
more services
Delayed cyclicity and lower conception stretch the calving interval; more costly open days before she gets back in calf.
05
Early culling
cows lost early
The hardest-hit leave before they repay their rearing; when a high producer is culled, her genetics go with her.
06
Emissions
more per litre
A cow who never reaches her potential on the same inputs emits more methane per litre — the efficiency prize still to measure.

Add it up

The £414k+ exposure, per 1,000 cows a year.

Anchored in the research first, then replicated on our US test farms. The milk-forgone portion rests on a peer-reviewed German intake-to-yield study (Weiß & von Soosten, 2020) and was reproduced across six US commercial dairies; the pound figure itself is a DMI Impact calculation on AHDB’s ~£0.36/L milk price, stated openly. We lead with the conservative floor — £288,000+ in milk alone (800+ litres per cow) — because milk is the part we have measured directly.

Recoverable exposure, stacked. PER 1,000 COWS / YEAR £414,000+ Emissions intensity Early culling & labour Fertility · services, intervals Disease · SCK, DA, mastitis, BRD Body condition · burned, re-grown Lost milk · £288k+ Peak & persistency, 800+ L/cow — the measured floor DMI Impact calculation @ AHDB ~£0.36/L. Milk-forgone anchored to Weiß/von Soosten 2020.

Missed milk is only where this starts. Lift transition cows out of the low and medium intake groups and the same research points somewhere bigger: fewer deaths, more cull and replacement value kept, lower health costs, better feed conversion — and fewer cows needed to fill the same contract. That is a genuinely open frontier, and nobody has measured it properly yet. We intend to, farm by farm, once UK data replicates our US milk numbers — and we would rather do it with the farmers, vets and researchers who know these cows best than around them. If that sounds like your kind of work, come and build it with us.

Run your own numbers

Your herd, your milk price, your exposure.

NEB Cost Calculator · coming soon. Enter your herd size and milk price for a headline recoverable-exposure figure, with a detailed farm-specific report to follow. Launching alongside the UK trial programme.

What the gap costs today is what closing it returns tomorrow.

Next on the journey

The problem is settled. The root fix is what’s been missing.

Every number on this page flows the other way once one behaviour changes — how much the fresh cow eats.

See the Solution →See the proof →