The farm studied in this thesis is undergoing a succession process. The tie stall cowshed is in good condition and there is no need to build a new cowshed in many years. The objective is to improve the profitability by developing production.

The development plan of the farm recommends that raising bulls will be replaced by dairy cows. In my thesis I wanted to compare the differences in profitability between raising bulls and dairy cows. I found out how much the modification of the tie stall will cost and with the calculations I compared the profitability between raising bulls and dairy production.

The development calculations were prepared with the CashMan –finance calculation program. The basis of the information was the tax information from the year 2014. Ending raising bulls and increasing dairy cows were compared using the price of milk at 35 and 40 cents per liter.

Replacing raising bulls with milk production increases the income from the cowshed. When the number of cows is increased by ten, the work time increases by a little more than one hour per day. When the price of milk is 40 cents per liter the increase in the number of dairy cows gives a better hourly earnings compared to the current situation. Even if the price would be 35 cents per liter the result would be better, however, the hourly earnings would be lower than currently.

The result of the thesis is that it would be more profitable to replace raising bulls with dairy cows. The calculations distort the reality because the price of milk was the only variable in the calculation. The price of meat is already now lower than when I made the calculations. I think that the cost factors will become lower as producer prices fall lower.