The family farm can beat the odds and survive with well-thought-out planning and sound execution. You may have never heard of the family business, Kongo Gumi, but it is in the Guinness Book of World Records
With spring approaching, runoff concerns come to mind for many dairy farmers around the country. Managing or redirecting the water that could run to or through manure storage facilities and confined animal...
Most of the time, a single type of bacteria will cause mastitis. When multiple strains are recovered the milk sample is almost useless. It becomes difficult to interpret which bacteria is the culprit,...
Several swollen hocks or neck abscesses might tell us that our stalls need more bedding or our neck rail height needs to be adjusted. Similarly, bruises on a carcass can reveal a lot about welfare once...
Fearmongers no doubt hate this: in the 20 years since rBST was commercially approved in the U.S., scientific evidence of its safety to humans has become even more overwhelming. This was the blunt take-home...
Some nerves were calmed in New York's dairy industry when OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) announced it would only be visiting larger dairies when it begins farm inspections in July....
Real dairy history took place when the President signed the new farm bill into law this past February. That momentous shift included the elimination of three underperforming dairy programs. Gone are dairy...
The non-GMO movement is knocking on Starbucks' doors. A staple on street corners and in airports, the high-value coffee chain is being pressured to serve only organic milk and cut ties with companies supplying...
It was a long time coming. The farm bill, which is scheduled to be renewed every five years, had delays, extensions and multiple compromises. But that is due to the multiple facets of agriculture, and...
Group housing is becoming a more popular and acceptable way to raise dairy calves. Besides feeding and health benefits, new research shows that raising calves in a group setting might also make them smarter
Stray voltage is still lurking around the countryside, said Doug Reinemann, University of Wisconsin-Madison milking equipment specialist, when he spoke at the Midwest Rural Energy Conference last week....
Animal rights group is doing massive spin doctoring and distortion to oppose it. A bill that would make it illegal to trespass or use fraudulent misrepresentation to gain entry onto a farm for the purpose...
Soil sampling do's and don'ts. A soil analysis is only as good as the sample on which it was based. Therefore, sampling should be done by either the farm's crop consultant
Have a winter emergency plan. Winter is not just about cold weather with frozen pipes, slippery concrete and snow shoveling. High volumes of snow can lead to barn collapses. At 3:30 a.m., 70-feet of roof...
Dairy once again proved it can be a divisive issue. Reportedly, the farm bill's dairy provisions were still being hammered out just hours before the final bill was filed with the House Rules Committee....
Dairy producer attitudes towards margin insurance were revealed during a series of workshops across Missouri designed to teach producers to insure their margins. In the process, we learned that margin...
Take a stand for cows that can't Down cows deserve special care to bring them back to health or, if necessary, to a humane end. by Geof W. Smith, D.V.M. The author is at the College of Veterinary Medicine,...
Tighter heifer management could be a window of opportunity for many herds. A heifer needs to make about 33,000 pounds of milk to repay her rearing costs, said Cheryl Marti, a dairy production specialist...
"If we took the best haplotypes (genes) from all the cows genomic tested to date, we would have a cow at $7515 Net Merit," said Paul Van Raden with USDA's Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory
The gap between milk demand and supply is widening in the world's largest country. This is a great time to be a milk producer in China. It's an even better time to be a high-quality producer. But it's...
