Ask an Editor

While browsing the pages of our magazine and website, or while walking the yard of your farm, have you ever had a question that has just stumped you? Like, “Why do my cows look like they are only playing in the water trough instead of drinking?” or “How likely am I to have a set of triplet heifers?” If you have questions for Hoard’s Dairyman, you can submit them here. One member of our team of editors will research your question, contact an authority in the area if needed, and respond to your burning question. We’ll even forward herd health questions to one of our Veterinary Column contributors to answer it in a page of our magazine.

Also, if you have something you just need to let us know about, we’d love to hear about it! In each issue of Hoard’s Dairyman you can find the Opinions, Brickbats, and Bouquets section. Here, readers tell us their thoughts, and share what they really think about the perils of our industry. If you have a handy way to handle something on your farm, submit it as one of our famed Handy Hints (and make some money while doing it.) You can email it to the editors -editors@hoards.com- and your hint could be printed and shared with tens of thousands of producers worldwide. Handy Hints that are published receive $30 and if you include a clear, reproducible photo, that earns you an additional $20.

The photo should be at least 240 dpi (dots per inch) and approximately 4" x 6" in size to print well in our magazine. And, when you provide your full mailing address with your hint, payment will be sent promptly. (Hints and photos can also be mailed to the Hoard’s Dairyman office at PO BOX 801, Fort Atkinson, Wis., 53538)

Oct. 10 2021
To ensure no cows are locked in the headlocks when the manure scraper cleans the alley, we hung the times of the day when the scraper comes by on the post by the headlock lever. That way, we don’t...
Sept. 17 2021
To stir milk replacer, we got ourselves a paint mixer for a cordless drill. It’s a fast and very effective way to mix the milk replacer for our calves
Sept. 2 2021
Rather than hauling newborn calves on my cold truck bed, I built this calf cart. I made a metal cradle that a tote fit into. I added some wheels and a hitch and made a sliding door on the back
Aug. 15 2021
Sometimes our hay and silage samples were getting burned because we forgot to turn the moisture tester off after the allotted time was up
July 19 2021
To keep our semen tank off of the concrete, we set it on a mover’s dolly. This makes it very easy for the tank to be rolled out to the truck when filling it with nitrogen
June 10 2021
For heifer feed troughs, we use half of a ditch culvert. We make metal brackets for them and use wooden half circles to close up the ends
June 10 2021
We use this cart for hauling small square bales inside our barn. It is 5 feet long and 3 feet wide, and it is made of stainless steel so it doesn’t rust
June 10 2021
To teach our calves to drink from the water trough, we take one ball completely out so they can easily access water on one side and learn how to operate the ball in the other
May 10 2021
Our calves kept chewing through the hose that supplied water to our waterer. We took a piece of cross-linked polyethylene (PEX) tubing and slid it over the hose. Now the calves can’t chew on it
April 25 2021
I came up with an idea to unroll three rolls of barbed wire at once to build a fence. I took a piece of metal long enough to fit three rolls of wire