Farming in northeastern Wisconsin’s Kewaunee County, the Ducat and Bogart families found they shared more than just proximity when each began exploring expansion plans more than 15 years ago.

Change is hard for anybody, and when things have been done a certain way for so long, they tend to continue to be done that way.

The practice of raising young stock off-site has grown among large dairies over the years. In 2014, 62.8% of large operations sent replacement heifers to an off-site raising facility as pre-weaned calves, according to a USDA report.

With nearly 75 years of service, Alice in Dairyland is one of the most iconic and recognizable figures in Wisconsin agriculture. In 1948, Wisconsin was gearing up to celebrate its centennial year in a big way.

An area that many dairies struggle with, especially those using composted manure for bedding is this: Milk quality. It’s a common challenge for somatic cell counts to bounce all over the board when bedding with dried solids, and it requires an elevated level of both stall and parlor management to maintain udder health.

One of Wisconsin’s most automated dairies is capturing the benefits of its recently completed box robot barn, including labor efficiency.

It’s all too easy to look at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange right now and think, “Wow, class III is $23 per hundredweight (cwt)! It’s about time dairy farmers got a break.”

On this Progressive Dairy Podcast, Peggy Coffeen makes a visit to a dairy farm with no cows in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, to learn about a business family coming into its seventh generation of operations. Philip Jones, CEO of Jones Dairy Farm branded pork products talks openly about the brand’s inspiring origins story, company culture and keys to a successful multi-generational business.

On Augustian Farms LLC in Kewaunee, Wisconsin, six LTS cameras monitor and record the 1,100-cow Holstein herd’s maternity barn.

Father and son dairy producers Randy Ebert and Jordan Ebert of Algoma, Wisconsin, join the Progressive Dairy podcast to talk about how they have diversified Ebert Enterprises to include not only a dairy operation, but also a facility for raising many of their beef-on-dairy crossbreds. They also share their “doubling down” approach over the past two years, which has included the purchase of a local meat market, building their own harvesting facility and, most recently, opening the Homestead Kitchen and Tap, a farm-to-fork restaurant.