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...
When mastitis was detected in the week after insemination, the likelihood of the cow carrying a calf was greatly diminished. A dairy's success or failure hinges on a number of variables, one of which is...
Living and childrearing expenses continue to climb. Family living costs are up for urban and rural residents alike. In a survey of over 1,300 farm families, Illinois farmers reported that their cost of...
Harvest is finally under way on the nation's cotton crop after being delayed by a cooler summer in many major growing areas. That means what has historically been the best time to shop for whole cottonseed...
First seek to understand, then act on the new farm bill's new dairy component. The recent Farm Bill eliminates the Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) and replaces it with a Margin Protection Program (MPP-Dairy)....
Americans are drinking less fluid milk, but their taste for dairy is not waning. In fact, USDA data released last month shows that per capita consumption of dairy products has climbed from 539 pounds in...
Safe, top quality milk is the goal of World Dairy Expo. With over 3,000 head of cattle entered in the 2014 World Dairy Expo, the milking parlor will be a busy place this week for both cows and exhibitors....
Farm milk prices in the U.S. have somehow and so far managed to defy the gravitational pull of rising production and falling international dairy product prices. But not in Europe, where changes in global...
