Her name was not Connie, but I’ll call her that. The company she worked for was not Cargill, but I’ll say it was. The first time I saw her was at our kitchen table, a red folder of pamphlets and fact sheets in front of her.

I’ve got a mule deer hangin’ on my wall from northern New Mexico, so I could relate to Rafael’s story.

Keeping an eye on milk fat production is important because milk fat is a valuable part of milk and is very responsive to herd management.Milk fat concentration is very variable from farm to farm and even between cows on the same farm. Every producer has a different goal for milk fat and has a different definition of “low milk fat.”

Changes in bodyweight are not a very good indicator of the nutritional status of dairy cows. For example, while the gut contents of a 1,400-lb dairy cow weigh approximately 200 lbs, the cow has a daily intake of nearly 100 lbs of feed (fresh weight) and 160 to 240 lbs of water (one gallon equals 8 lbs).

Under ideal conditions, dairy cows produce milk during 305 days of the year and are dry the remaining 60 (Table 1). In reality, feeding for high production should begin during the dry period or towards the end of the previous lactation.

It helps to know a little about a lot of things. It gives you a broad perspective. It also allows you to make a fool of yourself in many different areas. In my column, readers may notice that I appear to have an opinion on almost everything in agriculture. It might impress some, but real authorities in certain areas can easily see how thin my expertise is spread. For instance, I worked in a sheep parasitology lab during ag school. I tell people casually that I helped work out the life cycles of Thysanosoma actinoides, Stephanofilaria tylisi and Elophora schneideri.

In March of 2011, at 0200 hours (2 a.m.), I stood at a forward operating base near Mosul, Iraq, with about two dozen soldiers. We lined up, adjusted our Kevlar vests and helmets, our fragmentary eye protection and noise headsets, and in the flurry of dust, the womp-womp of rotors and the darkness of night, we boarded a CH-47 Chinook helicopter.

It’s awalys a good idea to set your sights on milk quality improvements that can help you capture greater return from your milking herd. “There is always room for improvement when it comes to milk quality, and small steps taken today can reap rewards tomorrow through increased production, higher premiums and reduced labor and treatment costs,” says Dr. Bradley Mills, senior veterinarian for Pfizer Animal Health Dairy Veterinary Operations. “In addition, progressing your mastitis management is part of doing what’s best for the health of your cattle and dairy operation.”

Are you thinking about building a new barn or milking center? It may seem like a simple business decision, but those of you who have built a new building or completed a major remodeling project know the process involves making thousands of decisions. Unfortunately, some farm owners assume that people constructing the building or installing the equipment, plumbing, wiring and other parts of the project know what to do and what is wanted. Sometimes the people hired do an excellent job and the owner is extremely happy with their work. However, sometimes the people hired don’t do the job that is wanted and the owner is an unhappy customer with a building that does not work well.