Below are the featured articles from recent issues of Hoard's Dairyman.


Dec. 29 2020
There are about 100 organisms that can cause infections in the udders of dairy cows. Selecting the best path of management for an individual case of mastitis starts with knowing what type of bacteria
Dec. 29 2020
Coming out of graduate school over a decade ago, I had sound academic training from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I needed a few years of experience in the fields and agriculture industry to begin...
Dec. 29 2020
So many of us have overflowing work plates, and we seldom stop to consider the value of the product we are producing for consumers. The simple answer is that beverage milk is among the biggest bargains
Dec. 15 2020
We often fail to take the time to fully appreciate the most important crop raised on our farms. It isn’t corn, cotton, or even cows . . . it’s children. As it turns out, those children don’t...
Dec. 15 2020
often, we do the same thing time and time again out of habit. We can get comfortable with familiar treatments and be reluctant to change, or perhaps we don’t even assess how well they are working
Dec. 15 2020
About this time last year, I had the notion that if I just made it to 2020, life would be so much better. I was anxious to turn the page and put 2019 behind us
Dec. 10 2020
it was a beautiful fall day. Earlier that morning we had started covering the bunker silo first, and then a stack of corn silage, with plastic and tires
Nov. 15 2020
I am an open book. Or at least my life is an open book, or so I have been told. Through this column and in my blogs, followers get an open glimpse of my dairy farm life
Nov. 15 2020
this year will go down in the annals of history as one for the ages. Indeed, 2020 had both immense challenges and immense opportunities . . . both are coming to light
Nov. 15 2020
What am I most proud about in 2020? That was the question posed by Lucas Lentsch to dairy farm leaders of the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), Dairy Management Inc. (DMI), and USDEC
Nov. 15 2020
I began my professional career in 1980 just as a number of proven reproductive technologies arrived on the marketplace in North America
Oct. 25 2020
Decades ago, rural communities were filled with farmers who knew their neighbors and residents who knew the challenges of living near farmers
Oct. 25 2020
The reason the government is involved in Federal Milk Marketing Orders is because dairy farmers must sell milk every day of the year to a buyer who does not have to buy milk every day
Oct. 25 2020
U.S. and global dairy markets have been bizarre this year. Looking at the block cheddar cheese market on the CME confirms that story
Oct. 25 2020
Cattle have been converting grass and other forages into high-quality milk, meat, and fiber, and used as draft animals, pulling heavy loads for humans, for roughly 10,000 years
Oct. 25 2020
With several farms sprinkled throughout the countryside, it is not uncommon to drive down the road and see signs offering “Free kittens.”Farmers know, when there are two cats, many will quickly...
Oct. 10 2020
What’s your life’s road map? You know, how did you get from Point A to Point B? Most of us have more than two pins on the map, or at least I do
Oct. 10 2020
I first attended the North East Production Medicine Symposium in 1993. Cow comfort was a major topic presented by the late Bill Bickert and a host of colleagues
Oct. 10 2020
There are some in our midst who continue to both belittle and bemoan dairy product exports. During a recent conversation, staff members for a rather well-known dairy farm organization went so far as t
Oct. 10 2020
The vast majority of our country’s population is several generations removed from farming. Most people are unfamiliar with modern production practices, yet dependent on agriculture and the food supply