With a healthy margin of victory, four members of the Spencer County FFA chapter took home the top prize at the 2016 National FFA Convention in Indianapolis, Ind. For this national FFA contest
The "truths" told by advertisers sometimes go too far. I was in the Milwaukee airport recently for an early morning flight, and I stopped at a coffee vendor. While in line, I was reading their promotional...
Type and production are partners in extreme production. Last month it was announced that Bur-Wall Buckeye Gigi produced 74,650 pounds of milk. That equates to 8,680 gallons of milk and set the single lactation...
A falling birthrate and growing Mexican economy are keeping potential employees south of the border. To thrive, dairies are dependent upon a reliable labor source. While some of our farms survive with...
Researchers and extension specialists in Texas, New Mexico and at the High Plains Intermountain Center for Agricultural Health and Safety (HICAHS) in Colorado are in the earliest stage of developing what...
Only 1,631 farms left, but it was still the 22nd yearly decline in a row. "Get out while the getting is good" saw 1,631 U.S. dairies leave the industry in 2014. According to data released earlier this...
While forage procurement and feeding play a huge role in the success of high-producing herds, they aren't the only factors. Reproduction and milk quality are critical elements, too. Each winter, 24 of...
Slowly but surely, the average quality of U.S. milk is becoming amazingly good. In 2013, for the 12th year in a row, the nationwide average somatic cell count (SCC) for all cows on Dairy Herd Information...
Three dairy judging contests were held at the North American International Livestock Exposition (NAILE) in Louisville, Ky., on Sunday, November 9. In all, 51 teams participated in the collegiate, post-secondary...
New Mexico boasts the largest average herd size in the nation (2,307 cows per farm in 2013), so dairy is no stranger to the state. However, a smaller number of large farms means that traditional "farm...
There are no coincidences when animal activists are involved. A reminder of that came again this week when the undercover video circus moved to Albuquerque, N.M., looking more neatly scripted than ever
Despite slower economic growth overall in the U.S., the agricultural sector is finally on the upswing. Real GDP (gross domestic product) rose 1.9 percent in 2013, down from the 2.8 percent growth rate...
Shades, fans, misters and water make milk production possible even in the desert. Few places in the U.S. are as deadly an environment for cows as Arizona, but milk producers there have become masters at...
"Although corn prices dropped dramatically during the fourth quarter of 2013, most other feeds rose in price which kept more profitable bottom lines just out of reach," reported the Frazer LLP certified...
Milk producers made tangible progress last year in their uphill battle to recover from the financial disaster of 2008-09, according to summary data from the largest dairy accounting firm in the country
When it rained, it didn't pour in California last year. As a result, the California Department of Water Resources (CDWR) has officially declared 2013 the driest year since records began being kept in 1895
April is National Grilled Cheese Month. Just the thought of warm melting cheese on hot buttered toast stimulates the taste buds. Delighted customers foster the continued consumption of dairy products....
Even during a down year, the average U.S. dairy grew in 2013. Both average herd size and milk production per cow went up - herd size by a lot and production per cow by a little. The result was a big bump...