As the landscape of the agricultural farmstead has changed from red barns with a variety of livestock and two-story white farmhouses to more single-focused livestock operations, have the words we use changed...
As we wrap-up our 62nd Round Table series, "Robots milk our herds," the four herds featured in our February 25 issue share advise for others considering robots
Change is one of the great constants in U.S. dairy farming. The industry has been evolving for most of a century, but especially in the last 20 years. Like an ice skater who draws in their arms while spinning,...
Sometimes we are so close to a topic that we often forget the values and assume everyone else is just as familiar with it as those who are so deeply entrenched. My responsibilities include the online content...
According to data just released by the American Jersey Cattle Association (AJCA), the number of Jerseys on Dairy Herd Information(DHI) test in 2012 rose for the ninth straight year and their actual average...
At World Ag Expo last week, a giant milk bottle caught my attention. It was filled with hundreds of white ping pong balls with names on them. Each ball, known as a milk drop, represents each dairy producer...
"You can't just go out there, feed them and squeeze them," was one of the many great financial one-liners Gary Sipiorski shared with a packed audience at the Great Lakes Regional Dairy Conference in Frankenmuth,...
It's impossible to easily sum up the 46th annual World Ag Expo, which ended its three-day run yesterday in Tulare, Calif. The weather was easily one for the record books. This year was as sunny, dry and...
Milk Income Loss Contracts (MILC) were automatically extended through September 30, 2013, under the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. There is no need for producers to re-enroll in MILC
Dairy management programs offered at no cost. No dairy herd is a cookie cutter of the next. Each have their own unique set of fixed costs, feed options and management criteria. Fortunately, there is software...
"Compared to 1944, milk production per cow is up 443 percent," Dale Bauman told attendees at the Great Lakes Regional Dairy Conference in Frankenmuth, Mich
In our February 10, 2013, issue, four producers from Vermont, New York, Wisconsin and California shared their thoughts on feeding high-forage diets to their herds. With the level of detail these producers...
Like many others production sectors, dairy farming continues to evolve into a highly focused segment. In May 2012, there were 1,767 counties that sold milk within the Federal Milk Marketing Order
Dependent on worker availability, region and farm size, foreign labor has become vital to accomplishing daily operations on some dairy operations. Earlier this week, a bipartisan group of eight senators...
"The current formal rule-making approach required to change dairy (product) standards is cumbersome, inefficient and resource intensive, so the FDA simply throws up its hands and does nothing,"
While most of us hope an OSHA inspector never has cause to pull up to our farm, dairy is slowly, but surely, coming under additional scrutiny. An inspection has a limited scope; it is a snapshot - one...
Of the two dairy producers making the finals of a new contest, one was successful. This morning, Will Gilmer, a dairyman from Sulligent, Ala., was announced as one of the four "Faces of Farmers and Ranching."
Another milk price year is in the rear view mirror, so it's time to sort through the rubble and see what it says. First, Class III prices for the year averaged $17.44 per hundredweight
Can't we all just get along? People have their favorite peer groups and cows need them, too. On Monday, January 14, Mike Hutjens, University of Illinois, presented a webinar on cow grouping strategies...
