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Current Progressive Dairy digital edition

1. 10 strategies to maximize conception rate: (A.I. & Breeding); The simple solution to boosting dairy cattle conception rates (CR) is to improve reproductive management and cow environment, as these two general categories account for 96 percent of CR variation. More ...; Created on 20 October 2017
2. Do’s and don’ts of retained fetal membranes: (Herd Health); My inquisitive 11-year-old recently asked me if a newborn child belonging to a family we know was in the hospital because the baby didn’t get enough colostrum. Wow. I could tell by the look on his face ...; Created on 19 October 2017
3. What we can learn from trees: (From the Editor); My husband and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary at the end of September by going for a swim at our friends’ quarry lake. It hit 91ºF that day, tying a record set in 1936. Despite the July-like ...; Created on 18 October 2017
4. New harvest adds to large old-crop stocks, but use higher: (Industry News); The USDA’s Sept. 1 grain stocks estimates provided smaller-than-expected inventories for both corn and soybeans, initially giving some price support for both crops. However, the impact faded relatively ...; Created on 18 October 2017
5. Foundation Watch: Donations lead farmer efforts to protect water quality: (Organizations); See a need Rivers and streams are threatened across rural America. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, agriculture sources contribute over 70 percent of the nitrogen and phosphorus pollution to ...; Created on 17 October 2017
6. Development agreements to protect vested rights: (Management); In Issue 16 of Progressive Dairyman (Oct. 1, 2017), we discussed ongoing legal battles involving Golden Sands Dairy LLC and a local government over the siting of a new dairy operation. (Land use law and ...; Created on 17 October 2017
7. How to help workers prepare for possible deportation: (Management); Immigration issues have seen heightened attention since last year’s presidential election. Concurrently, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) has expanded its efforts to identify undocumented ...; Created on 16 October 2017
8. Use Farm MAPPER to assist, protect, prepare emergency responders: (Management); Issue 16 of Progressive Dairyman (Oct. 10, 2017) highlighted the Rural Firefighters Delivering Agricultural Safety and Health (RFDASH) project from the National Farm Medicine Center. This project encourages ...; Created on 16 October 2017
9. Cutting through the smoke: Marijuana and the workplace: (Management); No matter where your personal convictions fall in the legalized marijuana debate, what we have right now is a potential legal mess for many employers. At this writing, 29 states and the District of ...; Created on 16 October 2017
10. Serotonin precursor decreases incidence of post-calving hypocalcemia: (Herd Health); Serotonin has many known roles in the body, from signaling in the brain to coordinating intestinal movements. But researchers at the University of Wisconsin are investigating a new use for the compound ...; Created on 16 October 2017
11. Re-evaluate data and connect the dots for smoother transitions: (Herd Health); Take a moment to think about your last cow to calve. Was it smooth sailing or were there complications? If a complication arose, has this issue occurred before? While a fresh pen issue may seem random ...; Created on 16 October 2017
12. Move toward successful pen changes during transition period: (Herd Health); Managing cows through the end of the dry period and into their next lactation remains a challenge across many dairy farms. Much of this is driven by what we ask cows to handle throughout the weeks before ...; Created on 16 October 2017
13. Reasons to re-evaluate the optimal dry period length: (Herd Health); The optimal dry period length between lactations in dairy cows has been debated since the early 1800s. During this time, some English farmers believed a two-month dry period was optimal, while others believed ...; Created on 16 October 2017
14. The long and short of it: Negative energy balance explained: (Herd Health); Cows are in negative energy balance (NEB) when their energy requirements (i.e., maintenance, gestation, production) are not met by their energy intake. Days before calving, cows enter into an NEB period: ...; Created on 16 October 2017
15. Let cows be cows: (Herd Health); On a typical day, how often do cows interact with people on your dairy? It’s common for a dairy team to mingle with a herd at least two or three times for milking, again if it’s a herd health day, again ...; Created on 16 October 2017
16. The dairy cow in 50 years: (A.I. & Breeding); At this year’s American Dairy Science Association annual meeting held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in June, several invited speakers presented ideas about how they saw the dairy industry in 50 years. Michael ...; Created on 16 October 2017
17. 5 questions to consider when choosing a timed-A.I. protocol: (A.I. & Breeding); Over the past decade, reproductive tools used to get cows pregnant have evolved tremendously. Automated activity monitoring technology has developed to deliver accurate detection of heats. Meanwhile, ...; Created on 16 October 2017
18. Breeding from the inside out: (A.I. & Breeding); Historically, dairy cattle breeders had limited tools to work with. Genetic selection was based only on what could be seen. Decisions were handicapped to visible and subjective conformation traits. Attempts ...; Created on 16 October 2017
19. The ideal cow of the future: Healthy, efficient and a premium milk producer: (A.I. & Breeding); When we think about successful Olympic athletes, one of the first names that comes to mind is Michael Phelps. He has won an incredible 28 Olympic medals and is one of the most finely tuned athletes of ...; Created on 16 October 2017
20. Just dropping by ... Spiritual comfort zones: (Yevet Tenney); It was back in the ’70s or ’80s that I first heard the term “comfort zone.” It became my new buzzword, and I even wrote goals to break out of my comfort zones. Back then, I was obsessed with self-improvement, ...; Created on 16 October 2017
21. Mechanics Corner: Hydraulics: Open vs. closed: (Barns & Equipment); Hydraulic power is something easy to use but not always easy to understand. At its root, hydraulics is the science of how fluids are harnessed to perform mechanical tasks. That can be anything from folding ...; Created on 16 October 2017
22. The Milk House: A day at the Irish mart: (Ryan Dennis); ByIt was a busy road to Headford, and like all Irish country roads, it didn’t have a shoulder. I was going to the Saturday mart – the weekly livestock auction – the only way available to me: by bicycle, ...; Created on 16 October 2017
23. HERd Management: Is work fun?: (Guest Blog); At the end of the school year, my city-dwelling cousin contacted me and asked if I would be willing to let her 12-year-old come spend a week on our farm during the summer. She wanted him to experience ...; Created on 16 October 2017
24. The Manure Spreader: Farmer superheroes: (Tim Moffett); Farmers, as a group, have been misrepresented. People who watch TV think farmers just sit in front of a peanut bucket while whittling a stick and talking about local gossip. Now, some of my best friends ...; Created on 16 October 2017
25. Three farms tackle family transition in different ways: (Management); Each farm is different and each family is different. Therefore, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to transitioning the family farm from one generation to the next. Three dairy farmers shared how ...; Created on 15 September 2017
26. Partial DCAD: An easier path to pre-fresh DCAD success: (Feed & Nutrition); Dietary cation-anion difference (DCAD) for close-up dry cows doesn’t have to be hard. For many dairy producers looking to try DCAD for the first time, implementing a brand new nutritional practice on-farm ...; Created on 16 August 2017
27. The one number every dairy producer should know: (Management); There are plenty of financial indicators of which dairy producers should keep close track. Milk prices, of course. Your income over feed cost is certainly important, and knowing your margins is a key to ...; Created on 10 August 2017
28. Hoekstras happy with 28,000-pound crossbred herd: (A.I. & Breeding); If they say two are better than one, how great are three? One California dairy has found success putting three breeds into one cow to reach their goals for a more profitable and efficient herd. Hoekstra ...; Created on 03 August 2017
29. Veal farmers rely on dairy farmers and other facts I learned about their industry: (Guest Blog); I will be honest: I didn't know anything about veal farming until after I started blogging about our family dairy farm a few years ago. As my content began to be shared within activists groups, the accusations ...; Created on 16 June 2017
30. Good dry cow management is the key to two more lactations: (Herd Health); Eighty percent of all problems arise in the transition period – 80 percent. Problems like milk fever, ketosis and metritis are a direct result of shortcomings in dry cow management. This is cutting cow ...; Created on 30 May 2017