Two new apps are now available to help producers evaluate calves' respiratory health. Respiratory disease can be a devastating issue for the calf caretakers on your farm. According to Terry Ollivett from...
A PCR assay can enhance your milk quality diagnostics. The incorporation of a robust diagnostic strategy has been promoted heavily in recent years as a way to identify the predominant pathogens causing...
In difficult economic times, we become better managers. Shrink is one area where we can tighten our belts. Dairy rations are balanced on the cents per cow that an ingredient will add to or cut from a feed...
Keep fresh cows "fresher" by identifying high risk cows early on. The high-risk fresh cow: She's older (third lactation or greater), had a difficult calving and is battling lameness. She had a longer lactation...
Meat is a diet staple for many Americans, yet some parts of the country tend to be more meaty than others. In a nonscientific study, cable news channel CNN created a list of the top 12 meatiest cities...
Prevent problems before they cause early culling. Mike Hutjens presented "Feeding cows for transition success" during the January Hoard's Dairyman webinar. He shared 10 Key Performance Indicators (KPI)....
Running a business has a lot to do with building and maintaining relationships, and for a farm, an extremely important relationship is the one with their lender. The foundation of that relationship is...
Keeping teats soft and healthy is the goal of every producer, but becomes more challenging during winter's cold temperatures. Leo Timms, Iowa State University, discussed this topic during the Hoard's...
Global warming or not, the world's climate is changing. In the United States, greater variability in precipitation patterns, more pronounced differences in weather between regions, and rising average temperatures...
Producer seminars are an early part of a five-year, $3 million grant from USDA. by Dennis Halladay, Hoard's Dairyman Western Editor The best description of genomics I have ever heard came this week from...
It's the time of year when children dream. And there is no better time to "dream big" than Christmas. There seems to be less guilt about asking for things during the holidays as compared to other times...
Is the trend motivated by cost or convenience? Just about anyone could guess that health care, housing and transportation costs were higher in 2013. And they'd be right. Americans have cut back across...
Simply guessing as to the cause is part of the problem. Death loss is a challenge to every producer. Minimizing early removals from the herd should be the goal, but it starts with an understanding of the...
"In the best-case scenario, we'll lose only 2 to 3 percent of our harvested forage tons to fermentation shrink," noted John Goeser, Rock River Laboratory, at the Penn State Dairy Nutrition Conference
A small dairy area in far-northern California climbed aboard the anti-GMO bandwagon on Tuesday, when voters in Humboldt County approved the "Genetic Contamination Prevention Ordinance" by a 59 to 41 percent...
I'm not typically an early Christmas shopper, but in the more recent years I've learned to pay closer attention to what my dad needs when we are fixing something, milking the cows or working around the...
An estimated 6.5 million fulltime employees in California – including those who work on dairies – will begin earning three days per year of paid sick time off from their employers under the...
Holstein million-unit fraternity hits 50. Breeding and then marketing an elite bull is a tough undertaking, and only a few have been successful. Bulls need to appeal to a wide audience of producers, but...
