Great fun at the Minnesota State Fair! This year is the 58th crowning of Princess Kay. She will take a seat in the "butter booth" during the first day of the fair to have her head carved in butter. After...
Homebred Iowa Holstein herd ranks near top for type Vernice and Dan Moon, Monona, Iowa, have been named the third Robert "Whitey" McKown Master Breeder Award winner which will be presented at the 45th...
In the dairy industry, we have our own version of the "Big 10" schools. These are the four-year universities charged with the task of generating some of the latest research and producing future industry...
About 25 years after the exodus began, Hoard's WEST joined the dairy migration from southern California to southern Idaho. Since it began publication in 1999, our Western edition was based near the Chino...
"Wow, the Holsteins here are smaller than the ones back home!" I said while walking to work with a co-worker. "You must be American. Those black and whites are Friesians, not Holsteins." This was one of...
New Zealand has followed a similar economic trend to its biggest customer, supplier, and investor, Australia, and it hasn't been pretty. But New Zealand is now beginning to mimic Australia's resource-driven...
Last week, I attended the National Holstein Convention in Virginia, and so did over 1,000 Holstein enthusiasts from across the United States. The four-day event was full of meetings, tours, junior competitions,...
This past weekend, Fort Atkinson Wis., the home of Hoard's Dairyman, hosted the second annual Fort Atkinson Half-Marathon, with over 500 participants. Once again, the Barnyard Clovers, a local 4-H club...
The FFA is one of the nation's premier youth organizations and agriculture is blessed to have the organization training future leaders in our industry. The Washington Leadership Conference, one of the...
When summer arrives, we know how warm and uncomfortable we can become. We look forward to the shade of a big oak tree, a chance to have lunch in an air-conditioned home, or the feel of the breeze on our...
It's just a tiny trickle so far, but solar power projects are slowly beginning to pop up on Western dairies. The latest one to begin generating electricity for the power grid is a big one, more than 200...
Paul Dyk, who recently left University of Wisconsin Extension for a job in the private sector, wrote a good article in a recent UWEX newsletter titled Higher Speed Internet Options for Fond du Lac County....
Ben Logan's The Land Remembers was originally published in 1975. He is now 90 years old and lives in Viroqua, Wis. Photo by Caroline Beckett used with permission of Itchy Cat Press. As a transplant to...
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...
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...
New USDA analysis shows that farmers are receiving less of each retail dollar spent. Numbers in 2008 showed a 20 percent share, but new data cuts that number to 12 percent of the food dollar going to those...
Higher milk prices and the optimism they inspire are translating into a large, positive crowd this week at the 10th Western Dairy Management Conference in Reno, Nevada, that concludes today. Total registration...
It's that time of year. The snow is about to leave us, baseball games will be televised, and demand for ice cream will increase. In theory, higher milk prices, feed costs, and haymaking season will be...
The size of the turnout spoke volumes about interest in the subject material at the "Dairy Financing Conference" February 22 in Visalia, Calif. Over 120 people – dairy owners, bankers, co-op leaders,...