Progressive Dairyman’s top 15 online articles for 2018

Canadian Dairy Network (CDN) held an open industry session on Oct. 24, at the St. Hyacinthe Congress Centre, which was followed, as usual, by a meeting of the Genetic Evaluation Board (GEB) the next day.

Coming in 2019, Compass is a new free online genetic software allowing you to “Navigate Your Herd’s Success.” Compass comes to you from Holstein Canada and the Canadian Dairy Network, with support from Zoetis Canada.

Lameness and hoof lesions can have a major impact on farm profitability. In order to assess the situation and better control the problem in one’s herd, it is important to collect reliable data on a regular basis to track progress.

As any producer would tell you, sometimes the only way to get a job done is to pull on your boots and get to work.

Before we really dig deep into these questions, let’s take a look at a football team. It will make sense later, I promise. This clever concept is credited to David Kohl, professor emeritus at Virginia Tech University and popular instructor on agriculture finance.

The selection of replacement heifers in commercial dairy farms has been traditionally characterized by very low intensity of selection, because in general farmers retain nearly every heifer calf as a future herd replacement. However, recent improvements in herd management have reduced involuntary culling rates and improved reproductive efficiency, which has led to the ability to produce excess heifers.