The topic of self-locking stanchions is on my mind. As I write this article, I have just read a thought-provoking piece in Hoard’s Dairyman Intel, “Lock-up time is lost milk time,” about...

Cold air has settled into the area. I am not referring to a little chill in the air; I am talking about the extreme cold that blows through every article of clothing and settles in our bones. It is th

When putting up alfalfa and stacking it into our hay shed, I always like to know which cut the bales are from. I spray paint the whole face where the first cut ends and now I know when to change the r

The medallions placed around their necks were not first-place blue, or even runner-up red. You’d never know it, though, because third-place white had never looked as good to the members of the Purdue...

As I open the sliding patio door, I’m reminded very quickly that grilling season has come to an end. The wind is blowing, and the snow is flying around. I can hardly see my neighbor’s house...

This is a time of year that we spend reflecting on the past and looking toward the new year. When we sit down with the accountant, the first, last, and in between figures we dissect are milk productio

I had the recent opportunity to team up with a milk cooperative adviser to provide assistance to a member farm. As I finished up and returned home, I sent a short text thanking her for the support. Sh

Many A.I. studs are now offering straws of semen that contain sperm from multiple bulls. To understand the potential advantage of a mixed, or “heterospermic,” A.I. dose, let’s review...

We all know that dairy farming is a challenging business under the best of circumstances. Hoyt Hill Farmstead has experienced additional stress over the past two years as Scott and Amber Hoyt have dea

In the cold weather, I wanted to plug in my pickup truck’s block heater, but I didn’t want a plug-in hanging out of the hood, so I made a bracket to screw the plug-in onto the front bumper....

Changing economics and shrinking margins on dairy’s home front have been a strong driver in herd demographics throughout the United States. When Hoard’s Dairyman partnered with the American...

let’s talk agronomy in the Feeding Fundamentals column to start this new year. While an agronomy discussion may seem out of place in a nutrition-focused column, it shouldn’t be. In last June’s...

We are approaching three years since the COVID-19 pandemic started. As the disease becomes endemic, we start to see the unintended consequences of control measures. While these measures saved lives, m

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA) of 1938 is a federal law that created the right to a minimum wage as well as overtime pay when people work more than 40 hours a week. The federal minimum wage was 2

Antibiotics play a critical role in fighting bacterial infections in animals on our farms. Of course, many of these same medications also restore human health, and that is one of the reasons why certa

Staphylococci are the most prevalent bacteria isolated from bovine mammary secretions. In the past, we would call them CNS, as in coagulase-negative Staphylococci. However, another classification sche

One of the greatest blessings Duane and I received this year was during one of the most difficult times. My mother had been ill for a few years, so her passing was not a total surprise. Her 91-year-ol

Butterfat composition in the national bulk tank has been on a meteoric rise over the past decade. Before that, according to USDA data, butterfat levels held in a tight window of 3.65% to 3.69% from 19

The author is a professor emeritus at Virginia Tech and an independent dairy consultant with Down Home Heifer Solutions.Each farm must weigh the pros and cons of feeding milk or milk replacer in their...

Central Lakes College in Minnesota has a law enforcement training course that teaches young recruits to respond to emergency and nonemergency calls for service. This includes traffic enforcement dutie

I took a used container that originally held ice melting salt and now use it in our shop to put down Floor-Dry. The slotted top works very well for spreading this product. Shaun Coyne, New York