Management

In a time when adjustments to feed rations can be compared and made at the drop of a hat using well- developed spreadsheets, when dairies can be monitored at remote distances by camera systems with online viewing capacity and when people communicate through a diverse offering of technologies, producers can also view, analyze, research and access the very prices that predicate the profitability of their livelihood.

When a cow with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease) was found in Washington State a few years ago, almost within hours officials identified the farm it came from and its dam.

Earlier this year, we saw “downer cows” – those too sick or injured to move – being shocked, sprayed with high-pressure hoses and fork-lifted to get them on their feet to be slaughtered at the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. in Chino, California.

If you didn’t attend a webinar hosted by a collaborative team of extension agents in August, you missed seeing the approach extension experts predict will likely be used to broadcast much of their information and expertise within five years.

Milking routines are all about cow throughput and milk quality.

It’s an age-old business mantra – put the customer first.