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1. A creative way to educate: (Editor’s Notes); Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Every home is a university, and the parents are the teachers.” Long before children start formal education, they begin learning from their parents at home. There are the ...; Created on 31 January 2018
2. DFC hosts successful dairy sustainability symposium: (Organizations); More than 200 stakeholders from various segments of the dairy and food industry gathered in Ottawa, on Nov. 7 and 8, to discuss the state of sustainability in the dairy industry and where it is headed ...; Created on 31 January 2018
3. 5 reasons to meet monthly: (Management); A monthly safety meeting. “It’s too hard to get everyone together.” “We’re too busy working.” These reasons to avoid meeting monthly to discuss safety may seem valid at the time of delivery. However, ...; Created on 31 January 2018
4. Disasters happen: How to create a crisis plan: (Management); An unplanned catastrophe can strike a dairy of any size at any time. A tornado or fire could level facilities and kill livestock in a matter of minutes. A death or serious illness could remove key employees ...; Created on 31 January 2018
5. Don’t ever be satisfied; improve continuously: (Management); In a recent article, I mentioned the concept of continuous improvement and want to expand the conversation around that management model. I am blessed to work with dairy producers who possess a wide ...; Created on 31 January 2018
6. How do we tell our non-farming children they are not getting a raw deal?: (Management); Our 33-year-old daughter was lamenting the fact there is no longer a Sears Christmas Wish Book. Decades ago, she delighted in flipping pages of the coloured catalogue seeking out requests for her wish ...; Created on 31 January 2018
7. The slices are bigger if the pie is growing: (Management); They say in the software industry that it’s better to own a slice of the watermelon than the whole raisin. Yet these city people don’t think the same principles can apply to a farmer. These hippies ...; Created on 31 January 2018
8. Does a manager manage?: (Management); Does a manager manage? You are probably thinking, “Bob, what a stupid question. Of course that is what a manager does.” Actually, I will argue in this article that the answer is “yes and no.” Let’s ...; Created on 31 January 2018
9. Optimizing employee management and dairy cattle welfare: (Management); It is common to observe great variation in dairy personnel turnover and performance among dairy operations. That variation can often be traced to training. Farm owners and managers determine whether ...; Created on 31 January 2018
10. Win the race to protect newborn calves: (Calves & Heifers); A fast time is crucial to winning a race. Newborn calf care is a lot like a race: The faster you get quality colostrum in calves, the sooner they’ll start to build immunity through antibodies known as ...; Created on 31 January 2018
11. 10 winter care tips for better calf health: (Calves & Heifers); Snow has blanketed many areas of the country, and temperatures are below freezing. Use these practical tips to make sure your calves are well cared for in the cold. Check the feeding temperature of ...; Created on 31 January 2018
12. Effective calf scours management involves more than replacing lost fluids: (Calves & Heifers); Calf scours is one of the most important and costly calf health issues affecting dairy operations in North America. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, scours, diarrhea and other digestive ...; Created on 30 January 2018
13. 3 tips to enhance post-weaning heifer nutrition: (Calves & Heifers); A strong heifer nutrition program is a multi-phase process geared toward optimizing animal growth and development. While there’s no one-size-fits-all program every farm or calf ranch must adopt, the ...; Created on 30 January 2018
14. Building the right heifer facility: Balancing cost, time and care: (Calves & Heifers); Your replacement heifers are your next generation of milking cows. Take care of them. With the intense focus on cow comfort, we all know that milking cows need comfortable barns, adequate space, appropriate ...; Created on 30 January 2018
15. What are your calves telling you?: (Calves & Heifers); Observing dairy calf behaviour is a critical skill in the early detection of disease. Dr. Sheila McGuirk from the University of Wisconsin published an excellent health scoring publication guide (Reference ...; Created on 30 January 2018
16. 5 steps to a successful automatic calf feeder nutrition program: (Calves & Heifers); The beauty of automatic calf feeders is: They allow you to increase intakes without increasing meal size or labour. However, you can’t simply install the technology and walk away. It takes a lot of ...; Created on 29 January 2018
17. Study shows activity and rumination monitoring systems find fresh cow diseases faster: (Herd Health); According to one study, activity and rumination monitors have the potential to accurately detect fresh cow diseases like ketosis, metritis, displaced abomasum and even mastitis days earlier than clinical ...; Created on 26 January 2018
18. Serotonin precursor decreases incidence of post-calving hypocalcemia: (Herd Health); Serotonin has many known roles in the body, from signaling in the brain to coordinating intestinal movements. But researchers at the University of Wisconsin are investigating a new use for the compound ...; Created on 26 January 2018
19. Re-evaluate data and connect the dots for smoother transitions: (Herd Health); Take a moment to think about your last cow to calve. Was it smooth sailing or were there complications? If a complication arose, has this issue occurred before? While a fresh pen issue may seem random ...; Created on 25 January 2018
20. Move toward successful pen changes during transition period: (Herd Health); Managing cows through the end of the dry period and into their next lactation remains a challenge across many dairy farms. Much of this is driven by what we ask cows to handle throughout the weeks before ...; Created on 25 January 2018
21. Tackle the three lesions that lead to lameness: (Herd Health); “I will contend that we now know more than ever what causes lameness, and while we still have more to learn, we know enough currently to solve the global lameness problem in our dairy industry,” Dr. Nigel ...; Created on 25 January 2018
22. Hoofin’ it: (Herd Health); Dairy cows spend about half of their lives standing or walking. Anything that affects a cow’s ability to walk comfortably will have a negative impact on milk production. Cows with sore feet don’t appreciate ...; Created on 25 January 2018
23. How dairies make use of hoof-trimming records: (Herd Health); When hoof health records showed digital dermatitis (DD) was out of control at a Minnesota dairy, the owners installed automatic scrapers to keep alleyways and hooves cleaner. In addition, they now ...; Created on 24 January 2018
24. Why barn floors are slippery and what to do about it: (Herd Health); An investment on a dairy barn floor should set the operation up for the future. However, a faulty floor can lead to costly losses due to down cows and lameness. In some barns, there are many underlying ...; Created on 24 January 2018
25. Feeding to prevent acidosis can also prevent lameness: (Herd Health); Lameness is a highly visible and important animal welfare issue, and nutrition should be part of the focus of managing it, says Mike Hutjens, professor emeritus of animal sciences at the University of ...; Created on 24 January 2018
26. Just dropping by ... Spiritual comfort zones: (Yevet Tenney); It was back in the ’70s or ’80s that I first heard the term “comfort zone.” It became my new buzzword, and I even wrote goals to break out of my comfort zones. Back then, I was obsessed with self-improvement, ...; Created on 23 January 2018
27. HERd Management: My advice to our future calf feeder: (Guest Blog); I recently began training a new calf feeder at Cedar-Pine Farm. The title of calf feeder has been mine for six years, and believe me – I am ready to give it up! With all of the responsibilities I have ...; Created on 23 January 2018
28. The Milk House: A day at the Irish mart: (Ryan Dennis); It was a busy road to Headford, and like all Irish country roads, it didn’t have a shoulder. I was going to the Saturday mart – the weekly livestock auction – the only way available to me: by bicycle, ...; Created on 23 January 2018
29. Equipment Hub: When your tractor needs new ‘shoes’: (Facilities & Equipment); If you go tractor shopping, you soon find out there are a bunch of choices to make. Even among tractors of the same manufacturer, you need to know what your present needs are and what your future needs ...; Created on 23 January 2018
30. Pre-hydrate calves for optimal performance: (Calves & Heifers); Pre-hydrating calves is not a regular farm management practice; however, it is commonly known among many athletes. An athlete’s main goal is to avoid dehydration during a sporting event because dehydration ...; Created on 15 January 2018
31. Young couple stuck with it to build a dairy of their dreams: (People); Everyone has at least one definitive moment in his or her life. The moment when you must either persevere against the odds in hopes of achieving greatness or give up and spend the rest of your life wondering ...; Created on 13 October 2017
32. Incidence vs. prevalence: Know where your herd sits with subclinical ketosis: (Herd Health); Ketosis is a very common disease in dairy cattle. Various testing methods are available to help dairy producers understand how it affects their herds. Here are a couple of points to consider in selecting ...; Created on 04 October 2017