We’ve never been that herd with the consistently low somatic cell count (SCC). Back when quality bonuses were a thing, we rarely hit the highest bonus level even though we tried everything to bring...

Milking evaluation reveals costly problemspresented by Phil Durst and Stan Moore, Michigan State University Extension Milking is so routine that we sometimes fail to adequately analyze it. Usin

The frequency and cause of clinical mastitis may differ considerably between dairy herds

The 2018 National Dairy Quality Award Platinum winners represent an exemplary group of dairy producers. Not only do these herds produce some of the nation’s highest-quality milk on a daily...

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Richard is one of my nephews and is an engineer working for a company in Ireland. I was interested to hear about his job and what challenges he faces being the youngest engineer on site

Over the last few years, we have seen a number of farms that we work with start milking some or all of their herd four times a day (4x)

A dairy farmer can take great care to make sure the milk produced on his or her farm is of the highest quality as it travels from the cow to the bulk tank

Unfortunately, Klebsiella mastitis has become more common in the U.S., and it can now be considered a widespread mastitis pathogen in the environment

As the incidence of mastitis caused by contagious pathogens continues to drop, there has been a greater focus on environmental pathogens and their association with mastitis and milk quality

An area of milk quality that is at times overlooked is emptied milk tankers that haven’t been cleaned

California, Oregon, and Idaho have set their state maximum somatic cell count standards at 500,000 or less, well below than the national level of 750,000

A new study found that cows fed all grass produced milk with a more desirable balance of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids

This is the 25th year that the National Mastitis Council’s National Dairy Quality Awards program has been recognizing the very best milk quality producing herds in the United States

We had a problem with our cows’ tails falling into our manure pan in the parlor, especially in the summer months when it’s warm and flies are present. Looking for a solution, I cut the botto

When it comes to milk quality, we are often found discussing “counts” or “values.”

Every once in awhile we will get a cow that comes into the milking parlor with an uneven udder. No matter how hard you try to position the milking machine properly, it will squawk. My boss simp

very dairy has cows with chronic high somatic cell counts (SCC). My definition of a chronic high SCC cow is one that has a SCC of 400,000 or higher for two or more consecutive tests

Trying to successfully treat a case of clinical or subclinical mastitis with intramammary tubes can sometimes be a crapshoot, as cure rates are typically 50 percent or less

While all farms strive to produce quality milk, it appears that mid-sized to larger farms do a better job achieving that goal.