Do you have an idea you’d like to share with other dairy producers? Send it our way! We pay $50 for Handy Hints printed in the magazine.

To be considered, all submitted hints must include a clear, print quality photo (at least 240 dpi and approximately 4" by 6” in size). Please send items to Hoard’s Dairyman, Handy Hints Department, P.O. Box 801, Fort Atkinson, WI 53538. You can also email your Handy Hints to editors@hoards.com. Please include your name, full mailing address and a short description of the handy hint with each submission.


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a collection of Handy Hints from our readers.



Here are a few Handy Hints from fellow readers.

March 12 2024
If you like tools that help you work faster, then this trick is for you
Feb. 14 2024
Do you want to be able to move your fence posts around?
Jan. 23 2024
My hydraulics quick attach kept getting pinned between the grapples and spears on my loader, so I made a bracket with three holes that match the pins on the quick attach
Jan. 5 2024
As someone raising only a handful of calves at a time, I was looking for a way to air the bottles out between feedings
Dec. 13 2023
I found a fast and efficient way to clean calf bottles
Nov. 14 2023
To better organize our tire sidewalls used to cover the silage pile, we built this rack out of I-beams and 2-inch tubing
Oct. 17 2023
Sometimes our newborn calves don’t want to walk in from the field
Sept. 13 2023
We needed a counterweight for our tractor
Aug. 15 2023
Instead of searching for a place to fasten our chains, we welded three hooks along our skid steer bucket
July 12 2023
My family farm has a pump that floats on a raft in the middle of the manure lagoon
May 15 2023
I had a lot of flies in the barn during the summer months, so I had an electrician install night lights next to the exhaust fans
April 25 2023
I was looking for a strong, durable pencil with an eraser
April 10 2023
We needed a more reliable way to thaw and heat colostrum, so I took a 15-gallon plastic barrel and cut it to the correct height so the heating element wouldn’t touch the bottom
March 15 2023
On our silage bunkers, we bolt 2-foot pieces of 1” by 4” boards using concrete anchors every 12 feet to hold down the vapor barrier plastic. This way, the wind can’t get a hold of it,...
Feb. 15 2023
It was confusing figuring out which valves needed to be turned if we wanted to shut off the water to a certain part of our dairy barn. We took blank ear tags and wrote on them which part of the barn t
Jan. 25 2023
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
Jan. 10 2023
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....
Dec. 10 2022
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
Nov. 10 2022
To find small leaks in tires, make a mixture of water and liquid soap. Put the mixture in a squirt bottle and spray it all over the tire. The air leaking out will create bubbles with the soapy mixture
Oct. 10 2022
I always had a mess with my drills lying around, so I made this metal holder out of a 1/8 inch plate. It is strong, and now everything is cleaned up. Ken Wipf, South Dakota