-
“We need to preserve our social license to produce food. It’s a reality we all have to face and deal with,” says Logan Bower, who hosted the Dairy Animal Care and Quality Assurance (DACQA) producer certification “preview” October 15 at his 500-c...
-
What’s in? What’s out?
During a recent press conference, Dr. Jamie Jonker, the National Dairy Animal Well-being Initiative’s co-chair for the principles and guidelines committee and director of regulatory affairs for the National Milk Producers Fed...
-
Traveling one afternoon with Ricardo Ehrenfeld Stolzenbach, a veterinarian and sales manager for Cooprinsem, a farmer cooperative in Puerto Varas, Chile, was most informative. Ricardo is in charge of the A.I. department in his area, supervising three tech...
-
If there is one thing that catches my daughters’ attention when we head to the fair, it is the rides. The constant commotion of screaming riders, flashing lights and the thrill of watching machines thrash back and forth, round and round, and up and down...
-
As any experienced litigator will tell you, how a lawsuit and what it is fought over differs from why you are in court in the first place. When it comes to court challenges to administrative decisions, the difference between what happened in the rulemakin...
-
Over the past 13 months, much has been documented about certain lending practices and subsequent repayment defaults on some residential home mortgages. The loans in question were most likely made to individuals with less than desirable credit histories, a...
-
The milk-to-feed ratio continues to decline as producers see less money remain after feed has been purchased. In August 2008, the ratio fell to 1.89 compared to 3.19 only one year earlier. With the lowering milk price and sustained high feed costs, margin...
-
In recent years, unions have increasingly targeted dairies in their organizing efforts. As organized labor searches for ways to avert a decades-long decline in private industry union representation, unions have targeted industries that employ Hispanic wor...
-
Managers have many choices to make about employee management. These choices require managers to consider the pros and cons of making changes. In some cases, the change would be relatively minor. More often, the change would take substantial time and energ...
-
Family farms are businesses, and we all know that managing the farm business can be a stressful activity for everyone involved. When we factor the family and the need for successful farm-family management into the equation, the potential for stress is gre...
-
Higher feed costs are a reality faced by dairy producers today regardless of the size of their dairy farm business. As managers of dairy farm businesses how do they deal with this reality? While there are no simple answers to this situation there are some...
-
More than any one thing, the amount of milk a dairy cow produces ultimately depends upon the amount of feed she consumes every day. The more feed you can get a cow to eat, in a properly balanced diet of course, the more nutrients there are available for h...
-
Milk production and reproduction are two key management areas that are relied upon to maintain and advance profitability on the dairy. Because of their integral role in the dairy’s success, it’s no surprise that recent research conducted in Denmark id...
-
Typically, in the fall you read articles about increasing the amount of milk replacer to feed to calves. The typical recommendations come from the National Research Council (NRC) predictions for the increased calorie demands for calves under cold stress. ...
-
The nutrient levels of feedstuffs often vary by 10 to 15 percent. Book values found in various feedstuff composition tables are useful as averages, but to fine-tune rations and address unusual growing conditions or other variables affecting nutrient compo...
-
• Why is the third hand on the watch called the second hand?
• If a word is misspelled in the dictionary, how would we ever know?
• Why does “slow down” and “slow up” mean the same thing?
• Why does “fat chance” and “slim chance...
-
Dairy nutritionists have a critical role in ensuring the viability of dairies. In particular, as dairy operators are obligated to provide detailed information on animal and facility management practices to local, regional and state regulatory agencies, nu...
-
Dairy producers facing forage shortages may be able to feed their cows canola and related crops, provided they take certain precautions, according to a North Dakota State University dairy expert.
...
-
I can’t help but wonder how it must have felt for the Pilgrims to have stood on Plymouth Rock and gazed out into the vast gray ocean as the windswept waves slapped the shores of a freezing, uninviting wilderness. It must have been a moment of excruciati...
-
Many years ago while I was involved in the dairy business, a most interesting thing took place. Naturally it involved a bit of questionable judgment that compounded itself, and things got worse. Occasionally a cow will take exception to being milked. Most...
Re: Honoring our Women in Dairy
Posted on Monday, 19 November 2012 by SHARON BENESH.I plan on getting a Blog site soon. Is there something I can do to...
Re: HERd management: True confessions of a farmwife: I didn’t love the farm at first
Posted on Monday, 19 November 2012 by Betsy.Wonderful article! I know Holly and Rob and you won't find two harder...
Re: PD POLL: Should routine tail docking be an approved animal care standard on dairy farms? [September 1]
Posted on Thursday, 15 November 2012 by David Crook.Tail docking is an excellent management decision for the cow and...