Ever been curious about grazing dairy systems? Have you tried grazing in the past and found that it didn't work? Wondering about what grasses to potentially grow, how to manage pasture quality, how to...
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...
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,...
Every day a milk truck comes to Shoestring Dairy. We exchange our normal "G'day Mate," then the friendly man hooks up the hose and pumps our cows' hard work from our tank into the truck. He prints off...
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...
The arrest of several undocumented workers at a Colorado dairy farm almost two weeks ago and similar events in recent years has brought the issue of labor to the forefront in the dairy industry. Politicians...
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...
Lowering the somatic cell count (SCC) limit has received a lot of press lately, but reducing SCC has many benefits for dairy producers regardless of regulations. Higher premiums and improved cow health...
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...
Farm safety is always an important discussion topic, but sometimes we forget about farm safety when machinery leaves the farm to travel on public roads. Tractor and machinery traffic has risen now that...
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."...
California took over as the largest U.S. dairy state in 1994 and for the last nine years has made more milk than No. 2 and No. 3 combined. For over 40 years, it thrived by embracing a business philosophy...
USDA finally appears ready to make a decision on national ID. According to the May 24, 2011, Wall Street Journal, "USDA wants every cow to have a unique numerical ID, stamped on an inexpensive ear tag...
April milk production in the top 23 states was up just 1.7 percent over a year ago. This represents a slowing of milk production growth from earlier this year. Milk production nationally during the first...
American farmers have an incredible ability to plant corn once favorable weather conditions exist. In Iowa, corn planting progressed from 8 to 69 percent in just seven days. That represented by far the...
Only 13 percent of the nation's corn crop has been planted according to USDA's most recent Crop Progress released May 2. This year's cool, wet spring weather has limited farmers' ability to work fields...
We are all familiar with the daily routine on our own farms and maybe how dairy producers in other regions of the country operate their facilities, but a select few have ventured internationally to learn...
Animal scientists at Washington State University think they do and are embarking on an extensive research project with several other universities that they hope will identify genetic markers that can be...
