The ninth Hoard's Dairyman webinar of 2012 featured Gordie Jones, a veterinarian and partner at Central Sands Dairy in central Wisconsin. The operation milks 4,000 head in a 72-cow rotary where cows are...
On Monday, August 27, Hoard's Dairyman hosted a special webinar. With drought conditions affecting so much of the United States, the feed supply will be limited and for much of the country, the quality...
Time is fading quickly if you want to land a contract for Livestock Gross Margin (LGM) insurance for dairy cattle. This Friday, August 31, approximately $2.5 million will be released as part of the final...
As many college students return to class during the next few weeks, they will pay their fall semester tuition and fees. On top of that, more bills for books, housing and meal plans will need to be paid
In a state often fraught with regulatory burdens, New York's political entity has finally seen the need to work with and not against agriculture in upstate. The current boom in the state's yogurt industry...
Leave it to farm kids to come up with creative ideas. When gathered with family over the 4th of July, Clymer, N.Y. brothers, 18-year-old Justin and 9-year-old Fred White decided to respond to the recent...
Last fall the Purebred Dairy Cattle Association (PDCA) updated their showmanship scorecard. The committee felt the scorecard should more accurately reflect how showmanship is evaluated. They removed the...
Raising healthy calves is critical to the future and profitability of a dairy, so evaluating calf health should not be taken lightly. Sheila McGuirk, D.V.M., who is a regular veterinary columnist for Hoard's...
With half of the country now in a drought disaster area, if there was ever a year for dairy farmers to take reducing silage losses seriously, this is it. The most silage you have is when it is standing...
With advancing technologies, how many (other than producers) have seen a working modern farm? The red barn, white fence and silo are not commonplace anymore. Thousands of guests, both rural and urban,...
The U.S. isn't the only place where dairy producer opinion is divided about the actions and motives of their cooperatives. Not by a long shot. My just-finished visit to New Zealand, the world's largest...
Polls indicate that consumers want foods labeled if they contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs). But with no health issues, is it germane? Nutrition labels have been mandatory in their current...
We posted a photo yesterday on our Hoard's Dairyman Facebook page of a well-dressed young man standing at the end of his dairy barn with rose petals sprinkled down the alley. We thought it was a unique...
Hundreds of votes are in from all over the world; in a landslide election, our Guernsey calf beat our Jersey with a final tally of 55.6 percent to 44.4 percent at 8 a.m
Dairy leadership program will now be held more frequently. The time for leadership in the dairy industry becomes more critical as producer numbers decline and the number of consumers grow. Fortunately,...
Use pictures to catch the eye and use your words to catch the mind To build trust, farmers know they must become a familiar face to their customers. From coffee shops to hay sales, farmers have used these...
In the brief period that the number of licensed U.S. dairies has been tracked (19 years), the trend is as frightening as it is obvious: the total gets smaller every year. That trend is a warning for every...
Consider writing a standard operating procedure to ensure tasks are completed uniformly on your operation. The workforce on a modern dairy farm is both multigenerational and multicultural. Without training,...
Economist Herbert Stein (1916-1999) had a keen wit and ability to sum up complex financial concepts in simple ways. A former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, he is best remembered...
