As global warming increases, and most agree it has regardless of the cause, ruminant raisers are going to become conversant in a new field of science called ‘Bovine Emissions Lately Considered Hazardous’, or B.E.L.C.H.

As the year ends, it brings a sense of closure for all that has transpired within the dairy industry during the past 12 months. We’ve seen higher than normal farm-gate milk prices coupled with record-breaking feed and fuel costs. Who would have ever thought corn would be more than $9 and wheat would be $4.50? And now diesel is $3.65 per gallon locally! What seems constant are the inconsistencies and the unexplained variables in the milk price/feed cost ratio.

Change is accelerating to an incredible pace in the dairy industry. In just the past few years we’ve had to deal with issues like: BSE, rBST, organic, high grain prices, volatile milk prices, feed grains for fuel production, high demand for milk components, cloning, sexed semen, consolidation, immigration, etc. It makes me think of Billy Joel’s song, “We didn’t start the fire.”

How do you make a good dairy a great dairy? Is it adopting all the latest gadgets that are introduced? Is it changing protocols all the time to stay on top? Neither of these are the answer for Jim Collins, author of the best-selling book, Good to Great. His answer is to focus on: “First who, then what.”

Observing the dairy industry’s recent changes, one might think registered animals are becoming a thing of the past. We asked Randy Carpenter, regional representative for Holstein Association USA, a few questions about where registrations are heading.

Feed efficiency may be called milk production efficiency or dairy efficiency, but all these refer to the same thing: How efficiently a dairy cow converts feed to milk. Far more important than the name is how this efficiency can affect a dairy’s bottom line.

The investment in proper heifer care is not an overnight return. Almost two years of feeding and care goes into heifers before they start producing milk. That’s why getting heifers into the milking string sooner while ensuring proper health is so critical.

Frost crocheted like lace flutters over the windows and waits for the sun to melt it away. The morning sunlight leaps and dances over the new fallen snow, and the blue abyss of sky stretches forever in cloudless wonder over the trees that droop with their burden of wet snow and icicles, which scrape the whiteness below.

In the month before our county fair, our mail box is filled with letters from 4-H kids inviting us to the fair and to take a look at their show animals. For example, “I’m in the sixth grade, my second year in 4-H in the beef project, and I love it! My steer’s name is Chipper, come take a look at him. Sincerely…”

If you have been to a Boise State football game, or any college football game, you know there are a lot of tailgaters enjoying themselves before the game. Boise State University has its own special tailgating group – the Bronco Dairy Boosters. This group of 150 to 200 dairy producers has made a big splash for Boise State’s fundraising efforts and has started a tradition that has enhanced one of the Western Athletic Conference’s premier rivalries.