We use cookies to provide you with a better experience. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies in accordance with our Cookie Policy.
If you struggle to motivate your milkers or are frustrated by your middle managers’ track record for solving problems, Drive written by Daniel Pink might be a book for you to consider reading.
Drive compares the most common tactics used to motivate productivity, from those that evolved out of the Industrial Age (think factories and manufacturing lines) to those now needed in the Information Age (think iPads and the application of technology).
While the book doesn’t have a single reference to dairy cows or milk production, I think its messages can be extrapolated to managing a dairy.
Animal protection groups have refined their use of undercover video investigations to effectively bring more public attention to their cause and influence food company policies. Fortunately, the food animal industry has evolved in responding to them.
Whether it’s the fluctuating stock market, the roller coaster of real estate or changing interest rates, Americans have become used to the concept of price cycles. While U.S. dairy producers have experienced ups and downs in their milk prices too, what distinguished this market through the 1990s and early 2000s was the regularity of the U.S. dairy price cycle.
A great awakening is happening across the dairy industry as many dairy operations are beginning to engage in price risk management. It’s a whole new management frontier to explore. And it’s another responsibility on the farm for someone to do or oversee.
When a new endeavor is first adopted on a dairy operation, it often takes a while before that task becomes fully integrated. At first it is part of someone’s job description by default.
DVM Systems has added a new feature to its rumen bolus temperature monitoring software: ovulation detection. CEO Kevin Wild and Dr. Wade Webster, DVM’s director of science, discuss the development of this new product.
The transition period is a challenging time for the dairy cow. Her metabolism needs to adapt rapidly from a non-lactating to a lactating stage, in preparation for the forthcoming calving.
In addition, the reproductive system is preparing ovulation for the next breeding period.
This sudden change increases the glucose demand from the mammary gland and the fetus, which cannot be met solely by the liver.
The 2012 growing season has reached the finish line, and for many it was a year we hope to never experience again. With producers working hard this summer and fall to get enough feed for the year, many questions came across my desk regarding summer forage crops, late cuttings of alfalfa and a wide variety of other topics related to the recent drought and subsequent feed shortage.
Six heavy-hitting dairy seminars scheduled
Progressive Dairyman will present six dairy-specific seminars at World Ag Expo in 2013. Half of the seminars will be video farm tours of successful dairy farms. This popular video tour format returns again this year.
Ask dairyman Todd Moore what type of milk he enjoys selling most and he’ll probably tell you he doesn’t really care, so long as it comes from a good-looking Guernsey or Jersey cow.
And a registered one at that. Moore, a self-described cowman, committed more than seven years ago to processing and retailing his own milk as artisan dairy products.
The transition period is a challenging time for the dairy cow. Her metabolism needs to adapt rapidly from a non-lactating to a lactating stage, in preparation for the forthcoming calving.
