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...
It's hard to watch milk production drop during extended periods of high temperature. As you try to stay hydrated and cool while working outside during hot and humid temperatures, you must work even harder...
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,...
When Hoard's Dairyman commissioned artist Bonnie Mohr, Glencoe, Minn., to create a new edition to its Foster Mothers of the Human Race paintings, the result was astounding
I spent the past week at my family's dairy farm in southwest Minnesota. One evening, while helping my dad with a few chores after milking, we felt a few drops of rain. We hoped the sprinkles would turn...
We've all heard the benefits of separating our first-calf heifers from their older herdmates. It provides our new cows with a chance to adapt to their surroundings, learn a new routine and, literally,...
Last week at the National Holstein Convention in Springfield, Mo., junior members gathered for the youth forum to hear the state of the association address by JAC Chairman Derek Wasson and to select three...
You may be facing challenges with the availability and expense of common bedding sources such as sawdust or the management of sand bedding. In recent years recycled manure solids have become a more prevalent...
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...
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,...
"Despite years of research, we still have sick cows," noted Nina von Keyserlingk, University of British Columbia, at the 2012 Herd Health and Nutrition Conference in Syracuse N.Y. Even with the herd health...
Top 50 genomic Holstein bulls are all over 792 Net Merit. by Hoard's Dairyman staff Genomics is accelerating the pace of genetic change. In the Holstein breed, it took a Net Merit (NM$) score of 792 to...
Travel the I-29 corridor in eastern South Dakota and you will have found the heart of the state's population. Intermingled along this same stretch of land are the vast majority of the state's dairy cattle...
Mud, sun, warmth, cold, crowds, and fun were all part of the familiar mix at World Ag Expo last week in Tulare, Calif. But it's what was not there that was the show's biggest dairy story. If 2009 was...
Hoard's Dairyman columnist, Gary Sipiorski, reminds us why milking cows is still a worthwhile endeavor. And yes, we're talking economics. With record corn prices (resulting in record bean, alfalfa, other...
Logan Bower is a leader in dairy cattle care The Beef Checkoff's annual awards were recently announced. Logan Bower, a dairy producer from Pennsylvania, earned the Dairy Beef Quality Assurance Award which...
When W.D. Hoard started Hoard's Dairyman as a supplement to the weekly Jefferson County Union newspaper on January 23, 1885, I doubt he would have imagined its potential growth, spread over a century and...
The birth of healthy twin heifer calves with a healthy mother cow is a gift on any dairy farm. Multiply that by two, and what do you get? 179,200,000. A normal day at Zuppan Dairy, Orland, Calif., includes...
Top 50 genomic Holstein bulls are all over 788 Net Merit. Genomics is accelerating the pace of genetic change. In the Holstein breed, it took a Net Merit (NM$) score of 788 to make the top 50 list among...