How is post-weaning growth in your calves? One challenge in raising calves is a slump in growth after weaning. There can be several causes for this.

Essential fatty acids (EFAs) continue to be a hot topic in dairy cattle nutrition as new research, on-farm trials and meetings provide additional information to the industry on how critical EFAs are for the dairy cow.

Wright’s Dairy Farm near North Smithfield, Rhode Island, is a small, family-run, 140-cow dairy. The dairy sits on 90 acres, and the family rents 150 acres to grow corn silage on. What sets this dairy apart from most is that they process their milk and sell it in a little store right on their property.

The U.S. dairy industry with its cycles of boom and bust makes us all wonder if times will ever return to when we may enjoy the comfort and security of a stable milk price. Blame it on federal milk pricing policy; blame it on overproduction; blame it on the economy; blame it on the weather.

“Grass-fed milk is a viable niche market. A lot of producers I have spoken with were using pasture-based as a way to potentially market their milk as a value-added product. Pasture has to be a major component of an organic system, so organic producers would be interested in this,” says Mat Haan, who is the coordinator of the Pasture-Based Dairy Project at Michigan State University.

I don’t ever recall a time in my nearly 60 years of living when there has been such a deluge of propaganda being poured on the American people. I used to teach my seventh graders about the dangers of propaganda and yellow journalism.

Generally speaking, my kids don’t cuss. I’m not complaining, but when you take into account both some of my favorite vocabulary and some of my favorite people, well, you would think they would share this fault of mine.

Harold Howrigan, a champion of Vermont’s dairy industry, has died. He was 85.

Those of you who watch television appreciate the increasing presence of ‘hard-sell, direct-buy’ commercials on the cable and satellite networks.

In today’s dairy industry, calves are raised under a wide variety of environmental conditions. These conditions range from calves being raised outside under a wide range of weather and temperature conditions, to moderate confinement with open-sided exposure, to calves raised in total confinement.