Earlier this month, we were introduced to Anna Gibson, a Washington State University student who is working on a dairy in Tasmania, an Australian island. She shares stories from her first week "down under."...

My hometown has a population of about 5,000 people, and it is the largest town in my county. There were almost 450 students in my high school, and the surrounding schools had fewer students and were located...

California took over as the largest U.S. dairy state in 1994 and for the last nine years has made more milk than No. 2 and No. 3 combined. For over 40 years, it thrived by embracing a business philosophy...

In recent years, it seems that more opinions have given credence to the notion that raising high-producing cows in freestall barns, storing manure in lagoons, and storing silage in bunkers are all better...

An anniversary only comes around once a year, and Hoard's Dairyman has celebrated plenty of them! This year marks the 126th anniversary of the publication. After great fanfare with our 125th anniversary...

Opposition to the federal government's seemingly single-minded support of ethanol production as a solution to help the U.S. become more energy self-sufficient reached a new boiling point last week, with...

April milk production in the top 23 states was up just 1.7 percent over a year ago. This represents a slowing of milk production growth from earlier this year. Milk production nationally during the first...

Will the 2012 Farm Bill actually be written and passed in 2012? What will it look like? That was the focus of the discussion at the opening session of the National Dairy Producers Conference in Omaha,...

Milk production for 2012 is forecast to climb as the decline in milk cows is expected to be offset by growth in milk per cow, according to USDA's World Supply and Demand Estimates released yesterday. Although...

At the Environmental Protection Agency's AgSTAR (http://www.epa.gov/agstar/) conference this week, we will hear from experts on the latest and greatest things happening with anaerobic digesters. Yesterday,...

If your herd could talk to you about their pen dynamics, what would they say? Would they compliment the soft, bedded freestalls, the wide alley ways, and the roominess of the feedbunk? Or would they be...

American farmers have an incredible ability to plant corn once favorable weather conditions exist. In Iowa, corn planting progressed from 8 to 69 percent in just seven days. That represented by far the...

Longevity and milking persistency finally paid off for a Maryland cow on Wednesday, when the American Jersey Cattle Association named her the breed's Living Lifetime Production Leader for 2010. She had...

Delegates to the bi-annual National Conference on Interstate Milk Shipments yesterday narrowly defeated a proposal to reduce the somatic cell count (SCC) legal limit from the current 750,000 cells per...

Only 13 percent of the nation's corn crop has been planted according to USDA's most recent Crop Progress released May 2. This year's cool, wet spring weather has limited farmers' ability to work fields...

We are all familiar with the daily routine on our own farms and maybe how dairy producers in other regions of the country operate their facilities, but a select few have ventured internationally to learn...

Animal scientists at Washington State University think they do and are embarking on an extensive research project with several other universities that they hope will identify genetic markers that can be...

If you are an active online agriculturalist (or "agvocate" as it is termed in pro-agriculture Twitter and Facebook circles like #AgChat), you have probably realized that the New York Times and its associated...

It may not seem like spring weather, but spring is here! That means it's time to clean, replace, and check on your equipment and facilities. David Bray at the University of Florida provided several items...

Have you ever been in the middle of a huge mess or fight with no exit door? But when you think about it, you're not exactly sure what got you into the chaos in the first place? For those of us in agriculture,...