Search - Progressive Dairyman

1. Market Watch: Cattle: (Organizations); Click a link below to see updates on Cattle from a specific issue of Progressive Dairyman. 2018 Issue 15, 2018: September 12, 2018 Issue 14, 2018: August 25, 2018 Issue 13, 2018: August 7, 2018 ...; Created on 24 August 2018
2. Thank you, Mike Gangwer: (From the Editor); I have dedicated this space for this issue to thank Progressive Dairyman’s longest-running columnist for his years of dedication and contributions to the magazine. Mike Gangwer, the author of “The View ...; Created on 05 May 2015
3. Names in the News: Mike Borden: (People in the News); The New York Times recently spotlighted O.A. Borden & Sons dairy in Schaghticoke, New York, which has switched to a robotic milking system. Seventh-generation dairyman Mike Borden talks about the experience ...; Created on 05 May 2015
4. Export Assistance Watch: First-quarter export assistance helps maintain market share: (Industry News); The Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) export assistance program in 2015 continues to protect export market share as well as expand markets for U.S. dairy products. The program continued to focus on ...; Created on 05 May 2015
5. The View from Here: In The Field: (Guest Blog); The extent of our lives can be told in stories. The art of composing the story, as essay or poem or detailed biography, are together the composition of a life. The stories of loss and then redemption, ...; Created on 05 May 2015
6. DCHA hosts successful annual conference: (Event Coverage); With 362 attendees representing 23 states, six countries and more than 500,000 head of calves and heifers, the 2015 annual Dairy Calf and Heifer Conference (DCHA) was one of the better-attended conferences ...; Created on 05 May 2015
7. Agriculture is a material-handling business: (Management); Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s, said: “McDonald’s is not in the hamburger business but the real estate business.” There have been several books written on Mr. Kroc’s life and the founding and establishing ...; Created on 05 May 2015
8. Know your options: (Management); Have you ever come across a word that means something different to almost everyone that you might ask to define it? Have you ever tried to get a definitive answer to a question that doesn’t have just one? ...; Created on 05 May 2015
9. EU, American dairymen face similar challenges: (Industry News); Dairy truly is a global industry, as economist Dr. David Kohl explained during the 2015 Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin (PDPW) Business Conference, where he moderated a panel featuring dairymen ...; Created on 05 May 2015
10. A regulatory review of Federal Milk Marketing Orders: (Industry News); The federal milk marketing orders have existed in one form or another for more than 80 years. Twenty years ago, Congress mandated a full review and reform of the order system, which was completed in ...; Created on 05 May 2015
11. New equipment at National Farm Machinery Show: (Event Coverage); Last year at the National Farm Machinery Show, marketing campaigns coupled every facet of agriculture with “precision” – precision planting, precision tillage, precision application and precision anything-else-you-care-to-name. ...; Created on 05 May 2015
12. Wheel loader sizing and configuration: (Barns & Equipment); Efficiency has become one of the most important factors in running any successful operation. When applied to agricultural applications like dairy farms, it comes down to balancing machine production ...; Created on 05 May 2015
13. When does technology help productivity? It’s about the data: (Management); I just saw an episode of the popular Today Show on NBC that introduced viewers to some eight new cool devices to “upgrade your kitchen” and conceivably (somehow) “improve your life and make you more ...; Created on 05 May 2015
14. Tedding, raking, inverting and merging forage swaths: (Feed & Nutrition); The largest factor affecting forage drying is sunlight. Thus, a previous article I wrote showed that putting forage into a wide swath following mowing had the largest effect on drying rate. Tedding and ...; Created on 05 May 2015
15. The ins and outs of dual-battery systems: (Barns & Equipment); I was in Portland, Oregon, sometime in the 1980s at Jubitz Truck Stop. I had spent the night in the sleeper of my hay truck, and when I pushed the start button, I got less than a weak grunt from the ...; Created on 05 May 2015
16. 10 things to consider in planning for precision feeding systems: (Feed & Nutrition); A precision feed management system can help improve feed inventory management, employee protocols or the accuracy of income over feed cost values. However, there are a lot of choices available and doing ...; Created on 05 May 2015
17. Factors impacting cow behavior in a robotic milking system: (Barns & Equipment); While adoption of robotic milking systems on U.S. dairy farms has been slower than in parts of Europe and Canada, these systems are slowly but steadily gaining popularity across the U.S. Greater labor ...; Created on 05 May 2015
18. Lag time matters in milking routines: (Barns & Equipment); Milking routines include milking procedures such as pre-dipping, forestripping and drying of the teats along with timing of milking unit attachment. The timing between these events is important if dairy ...; Created on 05 May 2015
19. Importance of amino acid balancing when milk prices dive: (Feed & Nutrition); Mailbox milk prices do change; this is the reality of the matter and one that dairymen have to deal with. When the price within a year drops more than 30 percent, as it did in the last 12 months, it raises ...; Created on 05 May 2015
20. Understanding starch digestibility inside and out: (Feed & Nutrition); We feed lactating dairy cows starch sources that may be ground, flaked, processed, rolled or ensiled. In addition, we store feeds containing starch in bags, bunkers and bins at different moisture contents ...; Created on 05 May 2015
21. Increasing nutrition precision by focusing on amino acids: (Feed & Nutrition); The dairy industry has become increasingly precise in identifying and meeting the protein requirements of dairy cattle.Most notably, the industry has moved from focusing on the diet’s content of crude ...; Created on 04 May 2015
22. Avoid too much of a good thing: protein: (Feed & Nutrition); Dairy producers and nutritionists understand the importance of providing adequate levels of nutrients in dairy cow rations. However, it is possible to provide too much of a good thing, which can lead to ...; Created on 04 May 2015
23. Prepare heifers for a successful first transition period: (Herd Health); The ties between dairy calf growth and adult performance are strong and circular. The first 45 to 50 days of a heifer calf’s life are critical for success, setting the stage for future health status, ...; Created on 04 May 2015
24. 10 do’s and don’ts during a declining milk market: (Feed & Nutrition); Feed represents more than half of a typical dairy farm’s operating costs. When milk prices decline, cutting feed costs is often a tempting first strategy for producers and their nutrition consultants. ...; Created on 04 May 2015
25. Boost productivity and yield by reducing soil compaction: (Barns & Equipment); Advances in seed and precision-farming technologies are continuing to drive higher productivity and crop yields. Farmers are looking for any edge they can gain, and that’s especially true for dairy ...; Created on 04 May 2015
26. Where are the milk bandits on your farm?: (Management); Several research studies say that for every extra hour our lactating cows lie down in a 24-hour cycle, they produce about 3 extra pounds of milk with similar dry matter intakes. This milk is basically ...; Created on 04 May 2015
27. Critical control points of alfalfa haylage: (Feed & Nutrition); Alfalfa haylage is a staple in the diets of high-producing dairy cows across the nation primarily due to its significant contributions of crude protein and physically effective fiber (peNDF) in most ...; Created on 04 May 2015
28. Successfully pasturing dairy cows: (Feed & Nutrition); For many dairy farmers, having milk cows that spend a good deal of their lives grazing on well-managed and productive pastures is an environmentally friendly and profitable way to dairy. In regions with ...; Created on 01 May 2015
29. Inoculants: The dairy farmer’s dilemma: (Feed & Nutrition); Every inoculant comes with a salesperson who professes how great their product works and how much their inoculant will save the producer money by reducing shrink and preserving feed quality. In response, ...; Created on 01 May 2015
30. Just dropping by ... Of broken cisterns: Part 2: (Yevet Tenney); Last month I shared an article I had written several years ago. The crux of the article was taken from the words of Jeremiah, an Old Testament prophet, who spoke of broken cisterns.In the early days, a ...; Created on 01 May 2015
31. Mechanics Corner: Upgrade your operation with these Father’s Day gift ideas: (Barns & Equipment); With Father’s Day just around the corner, you may be wondering what to get the mechanic in your life – or what to buy for yourself to prepare for the long days this growing season is sure to bring. My ...; Created on 01 May 2015
32. The language of nutrition: NDFd (Neutral detergent fiber digestibility): (Feed & Nutrition); In layman’s terms,what does NDFd mean? NDFd stands for neutral detergent fiber digestibility. NDFd is a tool to help benchmark fiber digestibility and compare the feeding value of forages. In the past, ...; Created on 01 May 2015
33. The Milk House: Strange Bob Square Bale Pants: (Ryan Dennis); In our old stanchion barn there was a large fan built into the wall. The blades turned quickly and the image of the calf hutches outside flickered in front of you. One of the first lessons I remember as ...; Created on 01 May 2015
34. HERd management: Go home: Tell your story in your neighborhood too: (Guest Blog); Right now there is a big push for farmers and ranchers to join the online conversations. We are supposed to “tell our story.” It’s blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. We are supposed to get out there ...; Created on 01 May 2015
35. The Manure Spreader: City lights: (Tim Moffett); People, we need to talk. Now, I don’t want to be controversial or start any protests; however, I feel we need to, as a farming society, talk about this. Out there, there is an entire class of people being ...; Created on 01 May 2015
36. Real ‘shrink’ in corn silage piles: (Feed & Nutrition); Corn silage is far and away the most important ensiled crop in virtually all U.S. dairy areas. As in most aspects of life, where we want to receive all of whatever it is we pay for, losses of corn silage ...; Created on 01 May 2015
37. Richmond Black & White Show reaches 100th anniversary: (Event Coverage); Craig Harris says his great-grandpa and a bunch of his buddies were probably just sitting around one day doing what dairymen do – talking about cows – when the idea for Richmond Black & White Days was ...; Created on 01 May 2015
38. Richmond Black & White Days 100th Year Anniversary schedule of events: (Event Coverage); Dates: May 12-16, 2015 Location: Richmond, Utah (showgrounds) SCHEDULE Tuesday, May 12 1:30 p.m. Annual Dairy Heifer Award Presentation 2 p.m. Richmond B&W Junior Show Wednesday, May 13 9 a.m. 4-H, ...; Created on 01 May 2015
39. On the Edge of Common Sense: East Coast – West Coast: (Baxter Black); I was back in New York last winter speaking to the Beef Producers Association. I have been on the East Coast often and have developed a good sense of how their urban neighbors look at the ag industry. ...; Created on 01 May 2015