Editorial: A2 Milk -Myth, Fad or the real deal? Of the questions our staff has fielded from readers over the past year, A2 milk would rank among the most frequent. While nearly no effort has been made...
Handy Hint: September 25, 2014 Extended chute saves trucks and grain When one of my employees came too close to a truck last year while filling it with the grain cart, I decided to fix the problem. I simply...
Handy Hint: September 10, 2014 Save plastic with smooth bunker edges Tired of the plastic bunker cover getting caught and torn from the edge of the concrete walls. Reuter Farms in Peosta, Iowa, came up...
The dairyman's judge Steve White ranks third all-time, officiating 11 shows at World Dairy Expo. That's the most of any dairy breeder and sits just behind Iowa State's Fred Foreman and Wisconsin's late...
Any way you slice it, Americans enjoy the safest and most abundant food supply in the world. The cherry on top of the ice cream sundae is that American farmers produce that food for our fellow countrymen...
U.S. milk prices are headed lower. At 11:59 p.m. on New Year's Eve, you can say with some certainty that the big ball will drop soon. Likewise, the dairy industry facts are rather clear: U.S. milk prices...
Paris, a 16-year-old Brown Swiss, has set a new record for lifetime pounds of protein and fat produced by a cow in the United States. There is a lot of black and white at Henry Dairy Farms, but a quick...
This volatile business of milking cows has rewarded many of its caretakers with handsome returns. We always must remember this is a business demands a great deal of capital, planning, time and good old-fashioned...
Handy Hint: August 25, 2014 Keep vaccination supplies handy We created a belt that makes vaccinating calves easier. We took a carpenter apron and riveted three PVC clamps to the belt. Then we cut a PVC...
Multiple component pricing has the potential to raise the value of producer milk in the pool. The magnitude of the increase will depend on the solids-nonfat and utilization of milk in manufacturing classes
Beef prices remain at record highs, in part, because the U.S. has the smallest combined beef and dairy herd since 1951. While it's true there were only 87.7 million head of cattle on inventory this past...
The top 25 counties are now home to one-third of the nation's entire dairy herd. That compares to one-fifth of the cows just 20 years ago. With 489,436 cows in the most recent U.S. Census of Agriculture,...
Handy Hint: August 10, 2014 Makes great footing for cows I made this grooving bull float to create good traction on the concrete in our dry cow yard. I bought a 4-foot magnesium bull float for $90 and...
it may not be the leading cause of improved milk production, but behavioral research in Europe has shown that cows that listen to music produce more milk. While it remains a relatively unstudied field,...
The Class III futures market expects $18 prices in early 2015. May's Class III price announcement of $22.67 per hundredweight was just the start of what is likely to be more cuts. Announcement of the $1.74...
We recently heard a presentation from a nutritionist in one of America's largest school districts who was struggling to comply with USDA's school cafeteria requirements. After listening to her discuss...
Handy Hint: July 2014 bottle holder keeps sunlight out We put a bottle cooler around our medicine bottles that require protection from sunlight. (Temperature variation and exposure to sunlight can reduce...
Despite our growing ability to find a needle in the "foodborne illness" haystack, as a whole, food safety continues to show steady improvement. Foodborne illnesses reported to the Centers for Disease Control...
Will today's record milk prices lead to new price lows? The billion dollar question every dairyman would love to know: how long will these historical milk prices last? In April, USDA announced Class III...
In determining how to employ margin insurance, understanding the premium cost relative to the expected payout for your dairy farm business will generally be the critical driver affecting coverage level...
Handy Hint: June 2014 Quick and easy calf ID When our primary calf feeder had time off, we sometimes got behind on tagging calves. We came to the solution of using plastic tags and dry erase markers that...